News

Iowa Fluoride Study receives continued funding

Published on October 2, 2015

Dr. Steven Levy and colleagues at the University of Iowa’s Colleges of Dentistry, Public Health, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have received a two-year award of $2,318,15 from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR). The award, which began Sept. 10, 2015, is entitled: “Fluoride, Dietary, and other Factors Related to Young Adult Bone Measures and Dental Caries.” Dr. Levy is the Wright-Bush-Shreves Endowed Professor of Research in the Department of Preventive and Community Dentistry (College of Dentistry) and professor in the Department of Epidemiology (College of Public Health).

In addition to Dr. Levy, the other research team members include Drs. John Warren (Preventive and Community Dentistry), Karin Weber-Gasparoni (Pediatric Dentistry), Teresa Marshall (Preventive and Community Dentistry), and Justine Kolker (Operative Dentistry) from the College of Dentistry; Drs. Joseph Cavanaugh (Biostatistics), James Torner (Epidemiology), Linda Snetselaar (Epidemiology), and Trudy Burns (Epidemiology) from the College of Public Health; Dr. Kathy Janz (Health and Human Physiology)  from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; and Dr. Punan Saha (Electrical-Computer Engineering)  from the College of Engineering.

The NIDCR-funded Iowa Fluoride Study began in 1991 and recruited a cohort of nearly 1,900 women with newborns to study longitudinally the complex exposures and intakes of fluoride from water, many foods, other beverages, and dental cavity prevention products, as well as relationships with dental caries (cavities) and other oral health conditions. Dietary and other factors were also assessed. Dental examinations were conducted at ages 5, 9, 13, and 17 to assess dental caries prevalence and incidence, as well as risk factors.

As an extension of the Iowa Fluoride Study (IFS), the Iowa Bone Development Study (IBDS) was funded by NIDCR in 1998 to better understand normal childhood bone development and relationships with fluoride and other dietary intakes and physical activity, anthropometric, and genetic factors. Bone assessments were conducted with National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other grant support at ages 5, 8-9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19.

The new NIH funding will support conducting a new wave of assessments at age 23 that will include both dental caries examinations and bone assessments that include dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) of the hip, lumbar spine, and whole body; peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) of the radius and tibia; and multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) of the tibia.