The Relationship between Handedness and Chewing Side

Objective: Chewing side preferences is a factor that could be associated various functional or postural lateral preferences. The purpose of this study was to determine the preferred chewing side and whether chewing side preference is related to handedness.

Design: Thirty-six participants were included in this study. All participants have at least 28 teeth (except third molar) and class I occlusion and have no tooth pain and periodontal problems. Edinburgh handedness inventory test was used for determining hand using side. For chewing side determining, the patients chewed little cracker three times and their chewing move was recorded with a video camera, it was determined by following the video.

Results: Fourteen subjects chewed on the right, twelve on the left and ten chewed on both sides. We found that there was no significant relationship between preferred chewing side and handedness. Also no significant correlation was seen between the preferred chewing side and handedness.

Conclusion: In our study we showed that chewing side preference in a dentate population is not related to handedness.

Keywords: Chewing side, Handedness, Cerebral lateralization.