This 2020 human study examined associations between food consumption and chewing difficulty:

“Masticatory function influences not only control of chewing frequency and pressure, but also quality of life through food intake. Reduced food intake caused by chewing difficulty results in loss of eating pleasure and nutritional imbalance.

Chewing difficulty (DC) has been related to brain-related diseases such as cognitive impairment, cerebrovascular disorder, and Parkinson’s disease, increase in occurrence of diseases such as muscular dystrophy, aging acceleration, stomach, and kidney dysfunction due to reduced digestive enzyme secretion, and depression.

Subjects were divided into not difficult in chewing (NDC) and DC groups, with 24.17% being classified into DC. Average age of all subjects (n = 20,959 adult subjects aged between 19 and 64 yrs plus older) was 50.67 yrs. Average age of DC (60.5 yrs) was about 13 yrs older than NDC (47.5 yrs old).

Males and females consumed 35 and 37 items less frequently than the other sex, respectively:

Subjects over 65 yrs who had chewing difficulty were 45.4% whereas that of adults was 24.3%. Items known to contain relatively high dietary fiber content or a high content of connective tissues were considered as foods to avoid by those with chewing difficulty due to strong or hard texture.“

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7683204/ “Food consumption frequency of Korean adults based on whether or not having chewing difficulty using 2013–2016 KNHANES by sex-stratified comparative analysis”

I’d like to know more about subjects who had unresolved dental problems. This study focused on age and sex, but I’ve known twenty-somethings who had problems such as false teeth and dentures.

I go to a dentist twice a year. Don’t think I’d make my gut microbiota happy with Avena nuda oats, broccoli and oat sprouts, and AGE-less chicken vegetable soup if I had dental problems.