*3.4. Relationship among Nutrient, Food Items, and Oral Health of the Participants*

Although significant differences were found among the three groups, as seen in Table 3, age was the only factor significantly correlated with β-carotene, vitamin K, green and yellow vegetables, and meat. The sodium-to-potassium ratio was found to show a statistically

significant correlation between the remaining teeth and masticatory performance; however, the correlation was weak (Table 4).

**Table 3.** Comparison of nutrient and dietary intake among groups.


Dietary assessment is the result of a brief self-administered diet history questionnaire (BDHQ). The results are expressed as the mean ± standard error. The significance level was set to *p* < 0.1. The sodium-to-potassium ratio was defined as the amount of sodium consumed divided by the amount of potassium consumed [40,57], Vit.: Vitamin. \* Significant differences were observed using the Kruskal-Wallis test. Mann-Whitney s U-test with Bonferroni correction was used to compare the two groups: a: statistically significant difference between the Normotensive and the Hypertensive group; b: statistically significant difference between the Normotensive and the History of hypertension group; c: statistically significant difference between the Hypertensive group and the History of hypertension group.


**Table 4.** Relationship among nutrient, food items, and oral health.

*r*: Spearman correlation coefficient, \*: *p* < 0.05, \*\*: *p* < 0.001.
