Vegetarian diet and its possible influence on dental health: A systematic literature review.

Beyond dental erosion, vegetarians tended to have a higher prevalence of other NCCL and tooth wear than nonvegetarians, reported narratively (ungraded).

Among adults, the lower DMFT score in vegetarians was smaller and not statistically significant (mean difference -0.09, 95% CI -0.32 to 0.13; ungraded).

Among adults, vegetarian diet was associated with almost threefold higher odds of dental erosion (OR 2.94, 95% CI 1.64 to 5.26; ungraded).

Among adults and excluding the outlier study, vegetarian diet was associated with higher odds of dental erosion with no heterogeneity (OR 2.56, 95% CI 1.77 to 3.71; ungraded).

Evidence on the number of natural teeth was conflicting and could not be pooled (ungraded).

A vegetarian diet was associated with about twofold higher odds of dental erosion than a nonvegetarian diet (OR 2.40, 95% CI 1.24 to 4.66; ungraded, mostly low-quality studies).

After excluding an outlier study, the association between vegetarian diet and dental erosion remained significant (OR 1.97, 95% CI 1.19 to 3.27; ungraded).

Evidence on other dental-caries measures was inconsistent: some indices (decayed surfaces/teeth, root caries, white spots) were higher in vegetarians while some studies found lower caries in vegetarian children (ungraded).

Vegetarians had a slightly lower mean DMFT (dental caries) score than nonvegetarians (mean difference -0.15, 95% CI -0.29 to -0.02; ungraded, mostly low-quality studies).