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Why didn't our ancient ancestors get cavities?

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Re: Why didn't our ancient ancestors get cavities?

#151

Post by spaghetti1535 »

ComradePhil wrote: post #141
skrebbel wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop eating vegetables? Tbf i can't figure out whether you're trolling or not.

Definitely not trolling. If you don't know how to prepare vegetables in indegenous culture that you got it from, you are better off not eating it. Also, even if you did follow indegenous preparation methods, the food industry may have changed the plant by artificial selection or genetic modification such that the indegenous preparation is not as effective, so you're better off ditching them anyway. Vegetables have si…

I have recently become interested in finding out more about this (and food/nutrition in general). I want to compile an overview of findings and reference studies. How did you learn about this? Do you recommend any scientific resources concerning the themes of your comment?

Re: Why didn't our ancient ancestors get cavities?

#152

Post by otherotherchris »

gibolt wrote: post #8
jrs235 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have evidence or proof of this? /s

Cadbury, since 1824. Although it may have just been acquired or rebranded at that time.

Since the mid 90's I've been having trouble keeping up with which soft drink conglomerate or highly leveraged hedge fund owns Cadbury in any given week, and whether it's one of the bad ones that I'm supposed to be boycotting.

Wikipedia says it was Mondelez International this morning, but who knows if that information became out of date while I was typing it...

Re: Why didn't our ancient ancestors get cavities?

#153

Post by dharma1 »

monocasa wrote: post #98
VerminOctopus1 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My guess is that it's mainly the composition of your mouth's microbiome. Some bacteria really like creating acid that eats away at enamel. Some don't. Whichever happens to have a foothold in your mouth (which probably has a very inherited component) is probably the determining factor in tooth decay.

This feels intuitively right, but you would think changes in diet can affect this too (if caries causing bacteria mainly feed on sugar).

There has been some research into oral probiotics like K12 and M18 but I’m curious how effective these really are.

Re: Why didn't our ancient ancestors get cavities?

#154

Post by grupthink »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #114
brnaftr361 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, I don't consume a whole lot of refined sugar but any time I do, I can feel the plaque building up almost immediately. But at least in terms of apples and grapes this isn't the case, nor does it appear to be so with complex carbs including bread and potatoes. Additionally I've noticed most candies and soda tend to leave residual taste in my mouth for hours. So I'm partial to pointing the finger specifical…

I think you mean tarter, not plaque. Plaque takes a while but you obviously will feel tarter only teeth at the end of any day if you've had sugary or carby foods. White bread starts breaking down into sugar as soon as it hits your mouth due to enzymes in saliva.

Plaque accumulates on teeth within hours. After a few days, it becomes tartar.

Re: Why didn't our ancient ancestors get cavities?

#155

Post by ComradePhil »

dharma1 wrote: post #150
ComradePhil wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not trolling. If you don't know how to prepare vegetables in indegenous culture that you got it from, you are better off not eating it. Also, even if you did follow indegenous preparation methods, the food industry may have changed the plant by artificial selection or genetic modification such that the indegenous preparation is not as effective, so you're better off ditching them anyway. Vegetables have si…

Fruit definitely evolved to be eaten (this is how the seeds spread)

True. Fruits and berries.

Re: Why didn't our ancient ancestors get cavities?

#156

Post by leobg »

Related observations:

1) Ötzi had cavities and gum disease.

“Ötzi, a Stone Age man who died atop a glacier about 5300 years ago, suffered from severe gum disease and cavities.” [1]

2) Sailor Steven Callahan, after 72 days adrift in the Atlantic ocean, where he subsisted on fish and birds, after being rescued:

"When I wake up in the morning, I look into the mirror. My God! Who's that? The face I see is straight out of Robinson Crusoe. Long, stringy bleached hair, hollow eyes, drawn brown skin, shaggy beard. Michelle Monternot gives me a toothbrush. It feels strange in my mouth. What's even stranger is that my teeth are not crusty and slimy but are remarkably clean. I wonder what my dentist would say about that." [2]

[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/scienceshot-iceman-h....

[2] https://books.google.com/books?redir_esc=y&hl=en&id=ebUKAQAA...

Re: Why didn't our ancient ancestors get cavities?

#157

Post by leobg »

ComradePhil wrote: post #141
skrebbel wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop eating vegetables? Tbf i can't figure out whether you're trolling or not.

Definitely not trolling. If you don't know how to prepare vegetables in indegenous culture that you got it from, you are better off not eating it. Also, even if you did follow indegenous preparation methods, the food industry may have changed the plant by artificial selection or genetic modification such that the indegenous preparation is not as effective, so you're better off ditching them anyway. Vegetables have si…

Indigenous preparation methods? Sounds interesting.

I remember reading the book “Fatu Hiva” by Thor Heyerdahl, about the island of the same name in the Pacific. He mentions the custom of the inhabitants of fermenting breadfruit in the ground for several years before eating it. One indigenous man is quoted as saying that he cannot digest food unless he has a portion of fermented breadfruit with it.

I haven’t tried it yet. I did start to ferment some breadfruit after reading the book. But that’s only been eight years ago - so not yet good to eat.

Re: Why didn't our ancient ancestors get cavities?

#158

Post by cheese_goddess »

ComradePhil wrote: post #138
taurusnoises wrote: post #74

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…

One doesn't have to ditch all "western food". Just being sensible with it is good enough: - ditch plant fat for animal fat - avoid excessive sugar - eat real food (no fake milk, meat etc.) - stop eating vegetables, specially raw vegetables Food is one of those things I take an ultra conservative stance on. The food industry has made eating literal poison (plant seeds, plant oils, spinach, brussel sprouts etc.) seem h…

Thank you for the word of warning.

I'd like to eat a lettuce salad with cucumber and spring onions (standard stuff where I live).

What kind of indegenous preparation technique do I need to use to make the lettuce safe to eat?

Re: Why didn't our ancient ancestors get cavities?

#159

Post by csomar »

qiskit wrote: post #72
jjeaff wrote: post #37

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.

Couldn't we test this hypothesis by checking the teeth of people living non-modern lifestyles? Do tribal people around the world living traditionally have cavities or not? What is the quality of their teeth?

They seem to have good teeth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAGjuRwx_Y8

They wear jeans, though. So they might be accessing nearby cities and the Youtuber avoided to mention that for clicks.

Re: Why didn't our ancient ancestors get cavities?

#160

Post by ComradePhil »

spaghetti1535 wrote: post #151
ComradePhil wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not trolling. If you don't know how to prepare vegetables in indegenous culture that you got it from, you are better off not eating it. Also, even if you did follow indegenous preparation methods, the food industry may have changed the plant by artificial selection or genetic modification such that the indegenous preparation is not as effective, so you're better off ditching them anyway. Vegetables have si…

I have recently become interested in finding out more about this (and food/nutrition in general). I want to compile an overview of findings and reference studies. How did you learn about this? Do you recommend any scientific resources concerning the themes of your comment?

I started on this path when I was trying to nurish myself back to health over a decade ago when I suddenly got fat. I thought science was the way to go... but was robbed of that notion a couple of years into it when I discovered that the path to health was in the opposite direction of what the science tells us.

Turns out the food industry fully controls the science of food and nutrition. You can start by reading Unsavory Truth or Food Politics by Marion Nestle for better understanding of why that is the way it is.

Having said that, Marion Nestle doesn't really explore one side of it... which is that because of ethical reasons, we'll never have proper human experiments, thus nutrition science will always be limited and incomplete, which leaves a lot of room for manipulation, which the industry is happy to do for profits. This has been covered very well by the YouTube channel What I've Learned: https://youtu.be/xRAw7yeDO-c

The same channel has several other videos on food and nutrition, one of the most important ones imo being the one on seed oils: https://youtu.be/rQmqVVmMB3k

Nutrition and Physical Degenaration by Weston A. Price as described in this thread is one of the best works in support of indigenous foods.

The Hidden Life of Trees is a great book on plant intelligence.

Other than those resources, we have to piece these things together, take long term views... like should we trust a diet that kept a culture of people alive and well for 100s of years over several generations or do we trust studies with couple of dozen subjects done over a few weeks funded by the food industry?

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