MedWire News: Patients with schizophrenia tend to have smaller teeth than those without the mental health disorder, research suggests.
“Individuals with schizophrenia are reported to have an increased incidence of minor physical abnormalities compared to controls, supporting the idea that schizophrenia is, in part, a developmental disorder,” explain Patricia Boksa (McGill University, Quebec, Canada) and team in the journal Schizophrenia Research.
They add: “Reductions in the crown size of permanent teeth have been observed in several genetic syndromes with central nervous system involvement such as Down's, Turner and Williams syndromes. However tooth size has not been examined in schizophrenia.”
To investigate, the team compared tooth size between 16 White men with schizophrenia and 20 men without the mental health disorder. Of the schizophrenia patients, 50% were found to have missing teeth, leaving eight patients for analysis with full sets of teeth.
There was no significant difference in average age between the schizophrenia patients and the other participants, at around 39 years.
The researchers made casts of the upper and lower jaws of all the participants and digital calipers were used to measure crown size along various axes of the teeth.
Analysis of the findings revealed significant reductions in tooth size across all teeth in patients with schizophrenia compared with the other participants.
The magnitude of the reduction in tooth size in patients with schizophrenia, averaged across all 28 teeth, was between 3.5% and 4.3%, depending on the axis measured.
There was no significant difference in left–right tooth size asymmetry between patients with schizophrenia and the other participants at any tooth position, however.
“The decrease in tooth size observed in patients with schizophrenia was highly significant and occurred across all teeth,” write Dr Boksa and team.
They suggest that “differences in genetics and/or environmental factors in early childhood are likely responsible for the decreased tooth size in patients with schizophrenia compared to controls”.
The researchers conclude: “Replication in a larger sample is required to confirm this first report of a reduction in tooth size in schizophrenia.”
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