Relationship Between Body Mass Index, Lipid Profile and Dental Caries

background and aim: dental caries is the most common infectious, non-communicable, chronic disease worldwide. obesity and overweight are major public health problems. both dental caries and obesity have multi-factorial etiology. the aim of the present study was to determine the possible correlation between the body mass index (bmi), lipid profile and dental caries in two groups of high-school students with active caries (ac) and no caries (cf) in hamadan, iran. materials and methods: in this case-control study, 118 high-school students between 15-19 years were divided into two groups of ac and cf. all clinical examinations were carried out by a single examiner. blood samples were obtained from the antecubital vein. lipid profile was assessed by the enzymatic method using an auto-analyzer. data were analyzed using stata.11 software. statistical comparisons were made using student’s t-test and chi-square test. results: bmi was significantly lower in ac group than cf group (p=0.008). males had higher bmi than females (p=0.056). cf group had significantly lower level of triglycer-ides (p=0.01), cholesterol (p=0.02) and low-density lipoprotein (ldl) (p=0.02) than ac group. conclusion: our results showed that dental caries adversely affects the systemic growth pattern, and students with dental caries had lower bmi than others. altered lipid profile had a higher frequency in ac group. dental caries and obesity are both multi-factorial diseases; hence, well-designed epidemiologic studies on the same age group need to be performed in the future taking into account the socioeconomic and cultural factors.