101–110 of 207 posts
That’s easy. Sugar.
It's not just sugar - any carbohydrate which a bacterium can easily metabolize to sugar (i.e. most of them) is a hazard. Grains, tubers, etc. are all dangerous from a dental perspective and have only been consumed in calorically significant quantities after the advent of agriculture.
genes probably. I’m mid 30s and have never had a cavity. I go to the dentist every 6months. I also have a huge sweet tooth.
I’m in the same boat. I’ve eaten a lot of junk in my life (standard North American trash diet), and have never had a cavity or any serious dental issue in my life. I also get a cleaning every 6 months at the dentist. I’d be shocked if the likelihood of developing a cavity didn’t have a large genetic component.
Although this wouldn't apply to ancient humans, I have heard the hypothesis that many people in olden times didn't have as many problems with cavities because many people drank well water. And well water has naturally occurring fluoride.
However, when I left my childhood home to attend university (and moved into the city afterwards), I haven't had a problem since. Then again, this is just one anecdote.
The fact that we have "wisdom teeth" seems to indicate that ancient humans did, in fact, get cavities and lose teeth to them.
Also nobody mentions all the starchy stuff and the fruit our ancestors ate. It's just odd how people reinterpret the entire history of our species based on recent dietary fads.
1 drop clove oil, 1/2 cup water. Swish regularly. It's an antiseptic. 19 years ago I went to the dentist and he told me I needed to have a cavity filled. I skipped that. I didn't go back (or to any other dentist) until last year. Got the x-rays. No cavities. Stuff works. Oh and stop eating sugar.
This is unscientific nonsense. Clove oil isn’t going to repair a hole in your tooth.
Next question.
Weston A Price is really the go-to for the early research in nutrition and dentistry. His book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration was making the rounds back when Nourishing Traditions became popular. Price, conclusively in my mind, showed that the moment the modern western was introduced into cultures who ate traditional foods, the next generation had terrible teeth, jaws that were too small for all their teeth, etc…
On the other hand, from The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han:
> In the Eastern Han [roughly 25-220 AD] a celebration was held each autumn at the Old Man Star Shrine south of the capital. During this feast those who had reached the age of seventy were given imperial staffs and fed by hand with rice gruel (on the assumption that they had lost their teeth). The staff had a model of a dove perched on its top, because the dove was said to never choke
Sometimes there's no real reason to believe things were different in the past.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't they be scattered? Pluck rotten tooth, toss...years later die and leave a big collection of bones, while the little tooth just erodes away?
Badly damaged teeth also tend to splinter and crack, leaving little from the original shape to recognize. The question is, where are the half-decayed teeth that must statistically be present in skulls, because people die of unpredictable circumstances?