Elderly in Appalachia Lead U.S. in Tooth Loss

ATLANTA — There was nothing for the older folk of Appalachia to smile about Thursday in the government’s latest study of toothlessness among the elderly, which found the poverty-stricken region leading the nation in tooth loss.

Kentucky and West Virginia have the highest percentage of older adults missing all their natural teeth according to data collected in 2002 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Slightly more than 42% of residents 65 and older in Kentucky could make that dubious claim last year. West Virginians were a close second with 41.9% of seniors admitting they had shed their natural teeth.

In both states, older adults who were naturally toothless outnumbered those who could say they had lost five or fewer of their natural teeth.

Although the study did not focus on the root causes of toothlessness in the states, researchers said they suspected a combination of economic, cultural and medical factors were responsible for wide variances in state results.

Western states tended to score much better on the tooth retention scale last year. Utah was tops with almost 64% of seniors living with most of their natural teeth, while about 60% of seniors in California and Colorado were still living with most of their teeth.