Number of Teeth According to Hand Strength in Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study of 11,499 South Korean Adults

Background and Objectives: Grip strength is a measure of general health and is associated with oral health. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the number of teeth and grip strength in Korean adults. Methods and Materials: We recruited adult participants who underwent oral examinations in the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) between 2016–2018. When performing the KNHANES oral examination, an experienced dentist performed it according to the oral examination guidelines and recorded the results. A total of 24,269 participants from the 2016–2018 KNHANES were included in this study. Of these, only 16,489 participants underwent oral screening. A total of 3209 were non-adult children and adolescents, and 1781 did not respond to the grip strength test; those who did not respond to the main independent confounder were excluded. The relationships between grip strength, general characteristics, general health, oral health, and the number of remaining teeth were analyzed. There were 11,499 subjects in total in this study, with 4839 males and 6660 females. The age groups were 19–65 years of age, with 8387 subjects, and 65 years and older, with 3112 subjects, and the number of remaining teeth was 0–9 for 936 subjects, 10–19 for 1015 subjects, and 20–28 for 9548 subjects. Results: The probability that the higher the grip strength, the higher the residual number of gingiva was estimated by multinomial logistic regression analysis using complex sampling. The higher the grip strength, the higher the probability of having 20–28 teeth remaining (adjusted odds ratio, 1.59; 95% confidence interval, 1.19–2.13). Conclusions: Maintaining general health is related to maintaining teeth; the higher the grip strength, the higher the number of remaining teeth.