Quality of life and nutritional studies in Sjogren's syndrome patients with xerostomia.

People with xerostomia can experience significant difficulties eating some foods which, before the onset of the dry mouth, would have been easily consumed. The few studies in the literature indicate that such people become deficient in a variety of nutrients. In this study, supporting evidence was sought to confirm whether a New Zealand population of people with Sjogren's Syndrome and xerostomia was malnourished. Quality of life issues were measured in the same patients. There was no evidence of nutritional deficiency in the study group, nor did xerostomia seem to be important as a determinant of psychological distress or overall quality of life. As measured by the GHQ-12 score, xerostomic people without their natural teeth were, however, more psychologically distressed than those with a natural dentition. The importance of maintaining the natural dentition in xerostomia is emphasised by this latter result.