Is Vitamin D Important for Teeth?

Check out this answer from Consensus:

The collective research underscores the significant role of Vitamin D in dental health. Adequate levels of Vitamin D are essential for preventing dental caries, ensuring proper tooth mineralization, supporting periodontal health, and maintaining overall oral health. Ensuring sufficient Vitamin D intake through diet, supplements, or sunlight exposure is crucial for both children and adults to promote healthy teeth and gums.

Importance of Vitamin D for Teeth

Vitamin D plays a crucial role in maintaining oral health, particularly in the mineralization of teeth and the prevention of various dental conditions. The following synthesis of research findings highlights the importance of Vitamin D for dental health.

Key Insights

• Tooth Retention and Bone Health:
  • Calcium and Vitamin D supplementation can reduce tooth loss in the elderly by slowing bone loss, which is crucial for maintaining oral bone and tooth retention1.
• Prevention of Dental Caries:
  • Vitamin D deficiency (VDD) is associated with an increased risk of dental caries in both children and adults. Higher Vitamin D levels correlate with a lower incidence of caries2 3 5 8.
  • Controlled clinical trials suggest that Vitamin D supplementation can significantly reduce the incidence of dental caries in children5.
• Tooth Mineralization and Development:
  • Severe VDD can lead to defective tooth mineralization, resulting in dentin and enamel defects, which increase susceptibility to dental caries and other dental issues2 8 10.
  • Maternal and neonatal Vitamin D levels are linked to the dental development of children, with deficiencies leading to accelerated dental age and developmental stages of teeth6.
• Periodontal Health:
  • Low serum Vitamin D levels are associated with increased severity of periodontitis, a chronic inflammatory condition affecting the supporting tissues of teeth. Vitamin D’s anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties are beneficial in managing periodontal health2 7 9.
• Overall Oral Health:
  • Vitamin D plays a role in the overall health of the oral cavity by aiding in the mineralization of teeth and supporting immune responses against oral pathogens. Deficiencies can lead to various oral health issues, including delayed tooth eruption and increased risk of oral infections2 4 8 9 10.

Is Vitamin D important for teeth?

Andrew Fulton has answered Near Certain

An expert from Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust in Dentistry

Vitamin D is key to the musculoskeletal system. Its deficiency can arise from lack of exposure to sunlight and through dietary insufficiency. This can have an impact upon the oral health of an individual, including resulting in chronological hypoplasia enamel defects. Enamel hypoplasia is a quantitative defect in the enamel, presenting as pits, grooves, missing enamel or smaller teeth.

This enamel hypoplasia can effect the secondary dentition (adult teeth), which starts formation at birth. These teeth start erupting into the mouth around age 6. The enamel hypoplasia can lead to increased risk of dental decay and aesthetic concerns.

Further information can be found in my paper: ‘Oral manifestations of vitamin D deficiency in children’, linked below.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41415-020-1424-y