An interesting article titled “Relationship Between the Eruption of Third Molar Teeth and the Growing Status of the Assamese Inhabitants of a North-Eastern State of India” appears in Cureus in January 09, 2022, written by Putul Mahanta Sr. and et. al. The article seeks to evaluate the relationship between wisdom teeth eruption and a possible association with body mass index which can be used to monitor growth in children.
The authors mention that teeth eruption is related to physical growth and is used to gauge child maturity as a biological marker. Factors such as hereditary, gender, nutrition and geographic location are known to influence teeth eruption. The authors set out to take into account that factors like BMI, genetic, nutritional, and geographical factors on wisdom teeth eruption. They conducted a cross sectional study of 1,060 patients with ages between 14 and 26 in India who were seen at three different institutions between July 2014 to July 2018. Patients included in the study were healthy and had no history history of surgery or trauma in the the jaws jaws and no known systemic disorder, and no known congenital disorders. Further, the authors excluded any patients with impacted wisdom teeth. The study used a conventional clinical dental exam to determine the stages of wisdom teeth eruption. Specifically, patients were categorized as no eruption if the wisdom tooth was not visible in any of the quadrants of the jaw, categorized as incomplete eruption if the wisdom tooth was visibly erupted but not all four, and categorized as complete eruption if all four wisdom teeth had erupted at the time of the study.
The authors performed logistic regression analysis to identify potential factors affecting wisdom teeth eruption. The authors found that all 38 people in the study of age 14 years had no eruption. At the age of 15 three people in the study had complete eruption and 19 and incomplete eruption. The authors found that the overall mean age of no eruption was 17.39 years, that of incomplete eruption was 18.67 years, and complete eruption was 20.33 years, which was a statistically signficant difference. It was found that statistically significant differences in the mean age of those who were male and female with no eruption. Of the 1,060 people in the study the authors found 163 (15.38%) were underweight, 625 (58.97%) were of average weight, 207 (19.52%) were overweight, and 65 (6.13%) were obese. Those that were of average weight had complete eruption in 109 patients (17.4%) and those that were overweight had compelte eruption in 37 (17.9%) of patients. Those that were underweight had no eruption in 120 (73.6%) of cases and those that were obesed had no eruption in 39 (60.0%) of cases. The authors found statistically signficant differences in the frequency of wisdom teeth eruption in different BMI categories of weight. The logistic regression show those with higher chronological age have a significantly higher chance of wisdom teeth eruption and that females had lower odds of wisdom teeth eruption compared to males. In addition those that were underweight had almost 0.5 times lesser odds of wisdom teeth eruption as compared to those with normal BMI.
The authors study found that in their study population the range of ages that wisdom teeth erupt is between 15 and 25 years. The findings showed a slightly younger mean age of eruption in males of 20.29 years versus females of 20.39 years. Further wisdom teeth eruption was more likely to be seen in patients of average weight or overweight and less likely in those underweight and obese. Those that were underweight had the most delay in wisdom teeth eruption. The authors state:
“The age of different eruption statuses of third molar [wisdom] teeth provides valuable data that can be utilized and applied in the age investigation and to monitor an individual’s probable growth pattern under investigation.”
The authors note a limitation of this study was that no panoramic x-rays were taken of the study participants. In the future the authors suggest another study to look at BMI and teeth eruption across different ethnic groups. It is not clear if these study authors are aware of prior work discussed in the post Forensic Age Estimation using Wisdom Teeth.