7 ms·

I would try this in a heartbeat, cavities IME seem to be mostly genetic or per-person microbiome environmental thing. The fact that without daily maintenance ou

I would try this in a heartbeat, cavities IME seem to be mostly genetic or per-person microbiome environmental thing. The fact that without daily maintenance our teeth can just rot away to a point where severe infection and/or death seems just like a major flaw we should be trying a lot harder to fix.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago
It's a flaw with an agrarian diet, not intrinsic to human anatomy. Archaeological remains of hunter-gatherers show extremely few cavities. They begin in earnest once people start eating domesticated cereal grains as a primary food source.
- pineconewarrior 3y ago
  The bacteria which cause cavities also evolved alongside us. The problem worsened as we introduced more food for the bacteria (from the agrarian diet).
  - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    > bacteria which cause cavities also evolved alongside us. So did the tapeworms. Or fleas
- ch4s3 3y ago
  It seems like modern hunter gatherers get cavities[1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5351833/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5351833/
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    "The unexpected discovery of high caries incidences for men in the bush is likely explained by heavy reliance on honey, and perhaps differential access to tobacco and marijuana. " I'd also expect a high fruit diet in certain tropical regions where fruit is available more constantly also shows similar effects.
    - ch4s3 3y ago
      Access to and a cultural appreciation for honey probably plays/ed a factor in some societies.
      - fsckboy 3y ago
        you think honey appreciation is cultural? that's ... sweet, my sweet summer honeychild.
        ch4s3 3y ago
        > sweet, my sweet summer honeychild I think we can maybe all move on from this awful quote. But, no I'm specifically referring to cultures like the Efé where men gather honey full time during a season, Yao honey-hunters who work with birds to find honey, or other forest cultures where honey is gathered from especially tall trees as a show of masculinity and bravery.
  - gregwebs 3y ago
    Modern hunter gatherers are a lot more modern than one might imagine. Usually wearing T-shirts and sometimes, as in this case smoking cigarettes. Their diet is different in many ways than hunter gatherers of the past, along with many other parts of their lifestyle. It’s probably a good demonstration of the “Paleo fantasy“- if these groups that are still playing by some of the hunter gatherer groups are getting very different results on these important markers, then we are likely to as well when we try to incorporate parts of the hunter gather diet or lifestyle into our very different lives.
    - ch4s3 3y ago
      > Their diet is different in many ways than hunter gatherers of the past There was no single diet of hunter gatherers in the past.
      - mlyle 3y ago
        Yes, and these guys are different from all of 'em.
      - gregwebs 3y ago
        Mostly fresh food- eating things they day they were picked or killed as the default. But generally in an environment of abundance with generational wisdom about what is nutrient dense. The group in the study may be eating lots of honey because they are more marginalized today by territorial pressure and others hunting and hunting restrictions, etc.
- teryasdasd 3y ago
  Even if you only eat meat (or whatever else besides grains), bits of food will still get wedged between into your gums and then rot away with your teeth.
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Sure, but it's a matter of degrees.
  - EGreg 3y ago
    Don’t vegetarians live 10 years longer, though? Seems like a net win for them
    - slabity 3y ago
      Yes. But is that a result of not eating meat? Or a result of paying close attention to your diet? A lot of inexperienced vegetarians/vegans end up with nutrient deficiencies because they don't ensure that they are properly getting all essential vitamins or amino acids in their meatless diets. I'm not a dietician, but it's pretty safe to say that these people are not going to be the ones with reduced mortality rates. You cannot simply remove an entire food group from your diet without putting in effort into paying attention to the rest of your diet. Some studies[1] show that pescetarian diets offer the lowest mortality rates. This diet still requires paying close attention to what you eat, but you are far less likely to have nutrient deficiencies. This is one of the huge issues I have with diet-mortality studies. During the gluten-free trend a while back, there were many that suggested gluten-free diets provided health benefits. However, for the vast majority of people, gluten isn't really that special as far as proteins go. It turned out those "health benefits" were just the result of people with gluten intolerances actually paying attention to their diet. Just to reiterate, I am not a dietician. Everything above is just my cynicism for studies that constantly fail to take into account that most people just don't care what they're eating. I would absolutely love to be proven wrong. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4191896/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4191896/
      - bawolff 3y ago
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > Archaeological remains of hunter-gatherers show extremely few cavities. How long did they live before becoming remains?
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Not long, but actually longer than the first agricultural societies is my understanding. With the agrarian transition, population density and family sizes went up (a lot) but life expectancy went down a bit and infant mortality and disease rates (zoonotic diseases + higher concentration of population to spread through) went up. Ag gives more calories per square km, so more people. But also more vulnerability to disease, periodic famine, and in some cases malnutrition from over reliance on cereal crops (e.g. Pellagra). Hunter gatherers are/were constrained by wild food source densities but also tended to have smaller families, breast feed longer (so fewer pregnancies), and could sometimes migrate when local wild animal populations were exhausted. If you have a bad crop year you can't migrate to the next valley and find a new field of wheat waiting for you. However there were likely many millennia of societies that mixed agriculture with hunting/gathering. Eastern woodland native Americans were like that pre-contact; maize agriculture + hunting game + fish etc. Seems like a good overall strategy.
    - DropInIn 3y ago
      > However there were likely many millennia of societies that mixed agriculture with hunting/gathering. Eastern woodland native Americans were like that pre-contact; maize agriculture + hunting game + fish etc. Seems like a good overall strategy. Aren't there parts of rural China still living in that mixed model today? And Africa too iirc...
      - thaumasiotes 3y ago
        As described, everyone in the world is living that mixed model today. Fish mostly come from the ocean.
    - thaumasiotes 3y ago
      > With the agrarian transition, population density and family sizes went up (a lot) but life expectancy went down a bit and infant mortality and disease rates (zoonotic diseases + higher concentration of population to spread through) went up. Infant mortality going up is the same thing as life expectancy going down. Neither one tells you much about whether people die before or after you'd expect to start seeing problems in their teeth. After ignoring infant mortality, it's mostly afterward, but "remains" are not a representative selection. > Hunter gatherers are/were constrained by wild food source densities but also tended to have smaller families This conflicts with the idea that they had lower infant mortality.
- guy98238710 3y ago
  Dogs don't get cavities. Human saliva is more acidic.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    Dogs absolutely get cavities. Yes, somewhat fewer, because: - Dogs eat fewer carbs and don't really eat acidic foods (no soda, fruit) - Dogs live a much shorter time and so there is much less time for damage to accumulate to enamel.
- KingMachiavelli 3y ago
  > It's a flaw with an agrarian diet, not intrinsic to human anatomy. We don't accept anthropological arguments for any more human anatomy limitations. We have contacts and glasses to correct our eyes and cars and planes to travel farther and faster then we ever could on our legs alone. I just think compared to the other recurring hygiene tasks, teeth seem to be the most labor intensive and accumulate damage continuously while most other hygiene tasks can be technically be ignored for days/weeks (like camping with no shower).
  - bawolff 3y ago
    Are these really good counter examples - they all have common explanations of this sort (whether or not true idk)? We have glasses because modern society requires focusing on close objects like books and screens causing eye strain. Cars are great for modern society but pretty poor and hunting an animal in the middle of a forest, etc. While i doubt its the only factor, diets higher in sugar than what hunter/gathers would have eaten seems plausibly linked to there being more cavities in modern times.
    - themitigating 3y ago
      Fruit?
    - doubleg72 3y ago
      I would argue it is more to do with the amount of sugars and the frequency these sugars are in contact with the teeth than anything. Sipping HFCS the entire day seems to be much more common these days..
    - jamilton 3y ago
      They're good counterexamples in they show solutions of the form "use technology" can work instead of "change the root behavior".
    - ImHereToVote 3y ago
      It's amazing how much your vision improves by simply focusing at the edge of your eye resolution level. Don't squint, just focus. A month later you will be blown away.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

It's a flaw with an agrarian diet, not intrinsic to human anatomy. Archaeological remains of hunter-gatherers show extremely few cavities. They begin in earnest once people start eating domesticated cereal grains as a primary food source.

pineconewarrior 3y ago
The bacteria which cause cavities also evolved alongside us. The problem worsened as we introduced more food for the bacteria (from the agrarian diet).
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  > bacteria which cause cavities also evolved alongside us. So did the tapeworms. Or fleas
ch4s3 3y ago
It seems like modern hunter gatherers get cavities[1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5351833/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5351833/
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  "The unexpected discovery of high caries incidences for men in the bush is likely explained by heavy reliance on honey, and perhaps differential access to tobacco and marijuana. " I'd also expect a high fruit diet in certain tropical regions where fruit is available more constantly also shows similar effects.
  - ch4s3 3y ago
    Access to and a cultural appreciation for honey probably plays/ed a factor in some societies.
    - fsckboy 3y ago
      you think honey appreciation is cultural? that's ... sweet, my sweet summer honeychild.
      - ch4s3 3y ago
        > sweet, my sweet summer honeychild I think we can maybe all move on from this awful quote. But, no I'm specifically referring to cultures like the Efé where men gather honey full time during a season, Yao honey-hunters who work with birds to find honey, or other forest cultures where honey is gathered from especially tall trees as a show of masculinity and bravery.
- gregwebs 3y ago
  Modern hunter gatherers are a lot more modern than one might imagine. Usually wearing T-shirts and sometimes, as in this case smoking cigarettes. Their diet is different in many ways than hunter gatherers of the past, along with many other parts of their lifestyle. It’s probably a good demonstration of the “Paleo fantasy“- if these groups that are still playing by some of the hunter gatherer groups are getting very different results on these important markers, then we are likely to as well when we try to incorporate parts of the hunter gather diet or lifestyle into our very different lives.
  - ch4s3 3y ago
    > Their diet is different in many ways than hunter gatherers of the past There was no single diet of hunter gatherers in the past.
    - mlyle 3y ago
      Yes, and these guys are different from all of 'em.
    - gregwebs 3y ago
      Mostly fresh food- eating things they day they were picked or killed as the default. But generally in an environment of abundance with generational wisdom about what is nutrient dense. The group in the study may be eating lots of honey because they are more marginalized today by territorial pressure and others hunting and hunting restrictions, etc.
teryasdasd 3y ago
Even if you only eat meat (or whatever else besides grains), bits of food will still get wedged between into your gums and then rot away with your teeth.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Sure, but it's a matter of degrees.
- EGreg 3y ago
  Don’t vegetarians live 10 years longer, though? Seems like a net win for them
  - slabity 3y ago
    Yes. But is that a result of not eating meat? Or a result of paying close attention to your diet? A lot of inexperienced vegetarians/vegans end up with nutrient deficiencies because they don't ensure that they are properly getting all essential vitamins or amino acids in their meatless diets. I'm not a dietician, but it's pretty safe to say that these people are not going to be the ones with reduced mortality rates. You cannot simply remove an entire food group from your diet without putting in effort into paying attention to the rest of your diet. Some studies[1] show that pescetarian diets offer the lowest mortality rates. This diet still requires paying close attention to what you eat, but you are far less likely to have nutrient deficiencies. This is one of the huge issues I have with diet-mortality studies. During the gluten-free trend a while back, there were many that suggested gluten-free diets provided health benefits. However, for the vast majority of people, gluten isn't really that special as far as proteins go. It turned out those "health benefits" were just the result of people with gluten intolerances actually paying attention to their diet. Just to reiterate, I am not a dietician. Everything above is just my cynicism for studies that constantly fail to take into account that most people just don't care what they're eating. I would absolutely love to be proven wrong. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4191896/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4191896/
    - bawolff 3y ago
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> Archaeological remains of hunter-gatherers show extremely few cavities. How long did they live before becoming remains?
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Not long, but actually longer than the first agricultural societies is my understanding. With the agrarian transition, population density and family sizes went up (a lot) but life expectancy went down a bit and infant mortality and disease rates (zoonotic diseases + higher concentration of population to spread through) went up. Ag gives more calories per square km, so more people. But also more vulnerability to disease, periodic famine, and in some cases malnutrition from over reliance on cereal crops (e.g. Pellagra). Hunter gatherers are/were constrained by wild food source densities but also tended to have smaller families, breast feed longer (so fewer pregnancies), and could sometimes migrate when local wild animal populations were exhausted. If you have a bad crop year you can't migrate to the next valley and find a new field of wheat waiting for you. However there were likely many millennia of societies that mixed agriculture with hunting/gathering. Eastern woodland native Americans were like that pre-contact; maize agriculture + hunting game + fish etc. Seems like a good overall strategy.
  - DropInIn 3y ago
    > However there were likely many millennia of societies that mixed agriculture with hunting/gathering. Eastern woodland native Americans were like that pre-contact; maize agriculture + hunting game + fish etc. Seems like a good overall strategy. Aren't there parts of rural China still living in that mixed model today? And Africa too iirc...
    - thaumasiotes 3y ago
      As described, everyone in the world is living that mixed model today. Fish mostly come from the ocean.
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    > With the agrarian transition, population density and family sizes went up (a lot) but life expectancy went down a bit and infant mortality and disease rates (zoonotic diseases + higher concentration of population to spread through) went up. Infant mortality going up is the same thing as life expectancy going down. Neither one tells you much about whether people die before or after you'd expect to start seeing problems in their teeth. After ignoring infant mortality, it's mostly afterward, but "remains" are not a representative selection. > Hunter gatherers are/were constrained by wild food source densities but also tended to have smaller families This conflicts with the idea that they had lower infant mortality.
guy98238710 3y ago
Dogs don't get cavities. Human saliva is more acidic.
- mlyle 3y ago
  Dogs absolutely get cavities. Yes, somewhat fewer, because: - Dogs eat fewer carbs and don't really eat acidic foods (no soda, fruit) - Dogs live a much shorter time and so there is much less time for damage to accumulate to enamel.
KingMachiavelli 3y ago
> It's a flaw with an agrarian diet, not intrinsic to human anatomy. We don't accept anthropological arguments for any more human anatomy limitations. We have contacts and glasses to correct our eyes and cars and planes to travel farther and faster then we ever could on our legs alone. I just think compared to the other recurring hygiene tasks, teeth seem to be the most labor intensive and accumulate damage continuously while most other hygiene tasks can be technically be ignored for days/weeks (like camping with no shower).
- bawolff 3y ago
  Are these really good counter examples - they all have common explanations of this sort (whether or not true idk)? We have glasses because modern society requires focusing on close objects like books and screens causing eye strain. Cars are great for modern society but pretty poor and hunting an animal in the middle of a forest, etc. While i doubt its the only factor, diets higher in sugar than what hunter/gathers would have eaten seems plausibly linked to there being more cavities in modern times.
  - themitigating 3y ago
    Fruit?
  - doubleg72 3y ago
    I would argue it is more to do with the amount of sugars and the frequency these sugars are in contact with the teeth than anything. Sipping HFCS the entire day seems to be much more common these days..
  - jamilton 3y ago
    They're good counterexamples in they show solutions of the form "use technology" can work instead of "change the root behavior".
  - ImHereToVote 3y ago
    It's amazing how much your vision improves by simply focusing at the edge of your eye resolution level. Don't squint, just focus. A month later you will be blown away.