Relationship between Masticatory Changes and the Time of Active Exposure to Tobacco

Introduction: Tobacco use is a risk factor for speech-language disorders that can interfere with chewing and swallowing. The time of active exposure to tobacco can be considered one of the factors contributing to structural and functional alterations of the masticatory muscles in the oral and oral preparatory phase of swallowing.

Objective: To analyze, through comparison, the smoking time in the emergence of masticatory changes.

Methods: A field study with prospective descriptive cross-sectional design, composed of 24 smokers. To evaluate the time of active exposure to tobacco, subjects were divided into two groups, users who have consumer up 20 years and over 20 years of use. For this analysis, the variables were evaluated: grinding food, masticatory pattern, masticatory speed, atypical twitches, and lip closure.

Results and Conclusions: Through Fisher's exact test, no statistically significant results were obtained in association of smoking time with these variables. However, can be determined a tendency to decrease masticatory rate in the group of subjects with time greater than 20 years of use. Literature reports that exposure to chemical agents, such as tobacco, reduces the ability of perception stimuli from the environment. Also affecting the motor action, which would justify a change in the masticatory speed of smokers. Therefore, studies with larger numbers of subjects are needed to define and quantify masticatory changes related smoking time.

Keywords: Masticatory changes, smoking time, stomatognathic system.