Association between Dental Amalgam Filling and Essential Tremor: A Nationwide Population-Based Case Control Study in Taiwan

Chien-Fang Tseng, Kun-Huang Chen, Hui-Chieh Yu and Yu-Chao Chang
Additional contact information
Chien-Fang Tseng: School of Dentistry, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung 40201, Taiwan
Kun-Huang Chen: Department of Artificial Intelligence, CTBC Business School, Tainan 709, Taiwan
Hui-Chieh Yu: School of Dentistry, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung 40201, Taiwan
Yu-Chao Chang: School of Dentistry, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung 40201, Taiwan

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 3, 1-7

Abstract: Essential tremor (ET) is a common neurological disorder and the most common movement disorder. Low-level occupational exposure to mercury vapor is known to be a crucial factor that increases the risk of tremor. Dental amalgam is one of the main sources of mercury in those who possess amalgam restorations. However, the relationship between ET and amalgam filling (AMF) is not quite clear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between AMF and the risk of ET using a population-based administrative databank. The data for this study were sourced from the Taiwanese National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD). A retrospective case-control study was conducted using this databank from 2000 to 2013. Case and control groups were matched by sex, age, urbanization level, monthly income, and Charlson comorbidity index using the propensity score method with a 1:1 ratio. In this study, 3008 cases and 3008 controls were included. The results from this nationwide population-based case-control study did not indicate any association between ET and AMF in Taiwan. Although the results were not significantly statistical, the findings may be worthy to be valued.

Keywords: essential tremor; dental amalgam fillings; nationwide population; case-control study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/780/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/780/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:3:p:780-:d:313399

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().