31–40 of 42 posts
An exceptional book about cavities and health in general: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration - A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/price/pricetoc.html
I'm sure everyone would rather have their own rather than implants or even caps.
Random observation -- my family seems to have a gene that makes us basically immune from cavities. My father has, to my knowledge, never had a cavity, despite being born in the 1930's, when health care, hygiene and regular dentist check-ups were not what they are today. I've gone months without brushing my teeth. Been to the dentist twice in the last 10 years - no cavities. (Of course, starting in college I realized…
Brush your teeth.
Random observation -- my family seems to have a gene that makes us basically immune from cavities. My father has, to my knowledge, never had a cavity, despite being born in the 1930's, when health care, hygiene and regular dentist check-ups were not what they are today. I've gone months without brushing my teeth. Been to the dentist twice in the last 10 years - no cavities. (Of course, starting in college I realized…
Gum disease. Brush your teeth.
Random observation -- my family seems to have a gene that makes us basically immune from cavities. My father has, to my knowledge, never had a cavity, despite being born in the 1930's, when health care, hygiene and regular dentist check-ups were not what they are today. I've gone months without brushing my teeth. Been to the dentist twice in the last 10 years - no cavities. (Of course, starting in college I realized…
However some people seem to have a pH in their mouths that is not appropriate to bacterial growth and therefore they get less cavities. You probably fall within this group and therefore have a smaller chance of getting cavities.
Random observation -- my family seems to have a gene that makes us basically immune from cavities. My father has, to my knowledge, never had a cavity, despite being born in the 1930's, when health care, hygiene and regular dentist check-ups were not what they are today. I've gone months without brushing my teeth. Been to the dentist twice in the last 10 years - no cavities. (Of course, starting in college I realized…
> I've gone months without brushing my teeth Why?
Every time I brush my teeth -- EVERY TIME! -- they hurt for about two days, and I get nasty bad breath. But if I go without brushing for weeks on end, things are fine.
I brush anyway, when I want to look nice for something, but usually I skip it.
I've always wondered if, when I brush, I wipe out whatever bacteria are taking up the niche the teeth-eating bad-breath-causing ones usually fill. I haven't thought of a test for that, but my continued experience with teeth that only don't hurt if I haven't brushed for a while doesn't seem to align with the conventional idea of how it works...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you never get cavities, the principal reason for brushing goes out the window. Humans survived for tens of thousands of years with plaque and yesterday's kill stuck in the teeth, even when poor dental was predominant. The primary reasons to brush your teeth are to prevent cavities, plaque buildup, and smell. If you don't get the first problem, the others are easy to ignore. Pleasant smelling breath is a modern asc…
Humans survived with poor dental care by dying before their teeth were completely rotted. If you plan to live longer than about 50, you'd better brush.
Studies of surviving hunting-gathering societies suggest that their lives were much lower stress and life spans (barring violent accident) much longer than early agricultural societies. Even with accident included, their lifespans were better comparatively recently. (For instance the eskimos, despite living in one of the harshest environments on Earth, had about a 25% chance of surviving to 60.)
Whether or not they would lose their teeth varied by diet. Our diets have lots of sugar and grains in them which promotes tooth decay. Other diets differ. Early surveys of eskimos that had never eaten Western food showed that most never have had a cavity in their lives. The immunity was not genetic - those exposed to Western food had plenty of cavities.
See http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/mortality-and-... for a reference to the lifespan of eskimos. See http://www.journeytoforever.org/farm_library/price/price5.ht... for some evidence about their lack of tooth decay.
If everybody starts using this molecule, isn't the bacterium going to adapt, like with antibiotics?
Quinine was used to combat malaria for two centuries, and it's still pretty effective. It isn't used as much today because of its side effects, but the fact that it held up as effective for so long is impressive. Some of the modern antimalarial drugs have seen better resistance develop much faster.
It's at least partly a question of how much the bacteria would have to change itself to adapt. I would expect something really targeted -- that kills only that one type of bacteria and not other things (such as you) -- to be more likely to have an exploitable weakness than something that kills everything (e.g., mouthwash).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Humans survived with poor dental care by dying before their teeth were completely rotted. If you plan to live longer than about 50, you'd better brush.
This is a very strong claim, and is not backed by the evidence. Studies of surviving hunting-gathering societies suggest that their lives were much lower stress and life spans (barring violent accident) much longer than early agricultural societies. Even with accident included, their lifespans were better comparatively recently. (For instance the eskimos, despite living in one of the harshest environments on Earth, h…