teeth and our evolution

christmas2012

With more extractions looming over my head and the horror and pain of it..I was thinking about teeth and our evolution,when you think of it sharks can grow back new teeth,children grow their new set,why not adults?there has been some sort of glitch in our evolution that does not allow this and our teeth then age and try to kill us(via abcesses/blood poisioning),the dreaded tooth extractions(which are sometimes necessary),decay,cavities/dental caries,toothache which later can go on to severe pain where abcesses occur.

Is this a message that we are naturally not meant to live beyond our 20's or what,i mean in the days where there were no dentists and no knowledge of teeth or physicians,we bascially died at a certain age due to our teeth if tribal wars didnt get us first.

What do you think or make of it?

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Our modern diet of refined sugars, and tobacco use is what causes most dental problems, not something paelo man had to worry about. The biggest issue back then was tooth wear due to husky foods. The wear of the teeth was such that the wisdom teeth came in to take up the missing space.

I think that the issue is that evolution has not caught up with our modern habits, a sharkes diet has not changed in milennia.

Getting teeth to regrow may be a future possibility, however overcoming issue like getting the right tooth to grow in the right place at the right time will be huge mountains to climb, I wont be holding my breath. The fact we can replace teeth with pretty good metal implants means this is an answer to a question that nobody is asking. The notion of an injection that regrows teeth is some time out.

Oral Surgeon

christmas2012 wrote: »

With more extractions looming over my head and the horror and pain of it..I was thinking about teeth and our evolution,when you think of it sharks can grow back new teeth,children grow their new set,why not adults?there has been some sort of glitch in our evolution that does not allow this and our teeth then age and try to kill us(via abcesses/blood poisioning),the dreaded tooth extractions(which are sometimes necessary),decay,cavities/dental caries,toothache which later can go on to severe pain where abcesses occur.

Is this a message that we are naturally not meant to live beyond our 20's or what,i mean in the days where there were no dentists and no knowledge of teeth or physicians,we bascially died at a certain age due to our teeth if tribal wars didnt get us first.

What do you think or make of it?

I don't know

christmas2012

if people could put money into dental research where by we could tinker with the dna and try and get our teeth to re grow every couple of years or decades as a default it would be worth looking into alright.its nuts that we havent advanced this way,if i had the money i would throw a substansial amount into dental research..

ballsymchugh

Khloe Unimportant Jeep wrote: »

Our modern diet of refined sugars, and tobacco use is what causes most dental problems, not something paelo man had to worry about. The biggest issue back then was tooth wear due to husky foods. The wear of the teeth was such that the wisdom teeth came in to take up the missing space.
.

fire was the big thing to affect teeth before refined sugar. cooked food wasn't as hard to eat, jaws and muscle developed smaller, so no space for wisdom teeth, now keeping oral surgeons in work.
ancient skeletons that are dug up have loads of space behind wisdom teeth.

pwurple

Some people already grow a third set of teeth. I have a relative who grew another set, in her 70's. Maybe I will, if I live that long.

Plan is to keep the ones I have though.

ballsymchugh

pwurple wrote: »

Some people already grow a third set of teeth. I have a relative who grew another set, in her 70's. Maybe I will, if I live that long.

Plan is to keep the ones I have though.

plastic.

digzy

pwurple wrote: »

Some people already grow a third set of teeth. I have a relative who grew another set, in her 70's. Maybe I will, if I live that long.

Plan is to keep the ones I have though.

jaysus, ya cant bate d'auld t'internet:rolleyes::rolleyes:

pwurple

ballsymchugh wrote: »

plastic.

Haha. Maybe.

Hyperdontia? They were weird looking yokes anyway. Whipped out fairly sharpish and dentures back in.

ballsymchugh

pwurple wrote: »

Haha. Maybe.

Hyperdontia? They were weird looking yokes anyway. Whipped out fairly sharpish and dentures back in.

hyperdontia means too many teeth, not technically an extra set. saw a patient really with 9 teeth in each quadrant.
people who think that they have an extra or third tooth coming through more than likely had severe crowding when younger and some secondary/adult teeth never made it out of the jaw until the teeth that crowded them in were lost/extracted.
or they were half crocodile/half human.

Galbin

Sadly, there is more to dental health than sugar avoidance. I eat a low sugar diet and have for years, yet I still seem to get cavities. The dentist said that some people have genetically better teeth than others, which I know to be true as my siblings do not eat as well as I do, yet have less fillings. However, I have since learnt that there is more to it and that my 'healthy diet' has set me up for some dental issues. In fact, my diet was less 'healthy' when I was younger and I had less cavities.

Anyway, in my search for improved dental health, I started doing some research and came across the work of the Weston A Price Foundation and Ramiel Nagel*. They give a variety of recommendations including, cod liver oil and/or butter oil and organ meats (for fat soluble Vitamin A and D), decreasing phytates in foods as much as possible (this involves soaking whole grains if you plan on eating them), obviously avoiding sugar (even fruit is limited) and eating a lot of grass-fed dairy. In Ireland, we are lucky that all our dairy is grass-fed anyway.

Some people are lucky enough to heal cavities with these recommendations, but many people cannot and instead use these recommendations to prevent cavities.

If you are interested, I'd recommend reading:

From Birth to Death by Dr. Gerald F. Judd (free on the Internet - I don't agree with everything he says, but he gives some good info)

Cure Tooth Decay by Ramiel Nagel

* The Weston A Price Foundation is named after the work of a dentist who travelled the world and studied the factors that influenced dental decay and teeth and jaw alignment. He saw that the diet of tribes where there was little to no decay was very different to the diet of populations with decay.

* He is just a layperson who studied teeth remineralisation to try to help prevent his young toddler from undergoing fillings at an incredibly young age. As far as I know, he reversed her cavities.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

This should be good.....

NeuroCat

christmas2012 wrote: »

With more extractions looming over my head and the horror and pain of it..I was thinking about teeth and our evolution,when you think of it sharks can grow back new teeth,children grow their new set,why not adults?there has been some sort of glitch in our evolution that does not allow this and our teeth then age and try to kill us(via abcesses/blood poisioning),the dreaded tooth extractions(which are sometimes necessary),decay,cavities/dental caries,toothache which later can go on to severe pain where abcesses occur.

Is this a message that we are naturally not meant to live beyond our 20's or what,i mean in the days where there were no dentists and no knowledge of teeth or physicians,we bascially died at a certain age due to our teeth if tribal wars didnt get us first.

What do you think or make of it?

Well, you should consider the fact that it's only in the last century (roughly) that the human lifespan has been extended so greatly. Although dental issues have plagued human beings for as long as historical records have been kept, our ancestors were dying at a much younger age than we are now. Roughly 100 years ago the average lifespan of a male living in an industrial city in England could be as low as 17 years old.

My point is, evolution takes place over millions of years and is selective of traits which aid survivability. Who knows, in another million years humans may well grow a third set of teeth later in life, but I wouldn't consider the fact that we don't at present to be a flaw in our gradual evolution.

Genetics is a tricky field, we can isolate genes but knocking out (for example) a gene which may contribute to tooth decay may also control another essential function within the body for regulating T cell growth and maturation. Maybe in another 50-100 or even 200 years this will be a possibility but at present we are really only scratching the surface of gene therapy so I wouldn't hold my breath for any such treatments anytime soon!

christmas2012

Galbin,thanks for the great reply,will definatley look up and have a read of this,it sounds good,thanks for the info much appreciated..

opinion guy

I would imagine the fact that our life expectancy would have been much lower in the past is a part of it - when the life expectancy was 30 or 40 because after that everyone else could outrun you when a lion chase ye all :pac: - lack of teeth wasn't so much of an issue


I once knew a guy born with only one set of teeth - he had to take real good care of them and they were sized between childhood and adult teeth

Big_G

christmas2012 wrote: »

With more extractions looming over my head and the horror and pain of it..I was thinking about teeth and our evolution,when you think of it sharks can grow back new teeth,children grow their new set,why not adults?there has been some sort of glitch in our evolution that does not allow this and our teeth then age and try to kill us(via abcesses/blood poisioning),the dreaded tooth extractions(which are sometimes necessary),decay,cavities/dental caries,toothache which later can go on to severe pain where abcesses occur.

Is this a message that we are naturally not meant to live beyond our 20's or what,i mean in the days where there were no dentists and no knowledge of teeth or physicians,we bascially died at a certain age due to our teeth if tribal wars didnt get us first.

What do you think or make of it?

Utter gobbledygook that makes my head hurt.

Big_G

Galbin wrote: »

Sadly, there is more to dental health than sugar avoidance. I eat a low sugar diet and have for years, yet I still seem to get cavities. The dentist said that some people have genetically better teeth than others, which I know to be true as my siblings do not eat as well as I do, yet have less fillings. However, I have since learnt that there is more to it and that my 'healthy diet' has set me up for some dental issues. In fact, my diet was less 'healthy' when I was younger and I had less cavities.

Anyway, in my search for improved dental health, I started doing some research and came across the work of the Weston A Price Foundation and Ramiel Nagel*. They give a variety of recommendations including, cod liver oil and/or butter oil and organ meats (for fat soluble Vitamin A and D), decreasing phytates in foods as much as possible (this involves soaking whole grains if you plan on eating them), obviously avoiding sugar (even fruit is limited) and eating a lot of grass-fed dairy. In Ireland, we are lucky that all our dairy is grass-fed anyway.

Some people are lucky enough to heal cavities with these recommendations, but many people cannot and instead use these recommendations to prevent cavities.

If you are interested, I'd recommend reading:

From Birth to Death by Dr. Gerald F. Judd (free on the Internet - I don't agree with everything he says, but he gives some good info)

Cure Tooth Decay by Ramiel Nagel

* The Weston A Price Foundation is named after the work of a dentist who travelled the world and studied the factors that influenced dental decay and teeth and jaw alignment. He saw that the diet of tribes where there was little to no decay was very different to the diet of populations with decay.

* He is just a layperson who studied teeth remineralisation to try to help prevent his young toddler from undergoing fillings at an incredibly young age. As far as I know, he reversed her cavities.

The aetiology of caries is well understood and backed up with about 100 years of research as is the mechanism of action of fluoride. Both of the people above seem to contradict it with poorly researched and documented pseudoscience. The most recent development in caries treatment is CAMBRA - CAries Management By Risk Assessment which theorises that some people are at a higher risk of caries due to specific micro flora present in the mouth.

Unfortunately, science has not yet come up with a way for people to completely absolve themselves of personal responsibility when it comes to the development of cavities (except in the state of California where dentists have been successfully sued for not employing CAMBRA as a treatment modality).

Caries is simple, control the exchange of ions at the surface of the enamel and prevent decay. You do this by limiting frequency of refined carbohydrate intake.


Look up Dr. Bill Bowen at Rochester Caries Research Center to read about (probably) the world's foremost caries researcher who is a graduate of Trinity. He publishes some interesting stuff.

christmas2012

bigG how is it gobbeldegook?I know i asked some valid questions..

opinion guy

Big_G wrote: »

Utter gobbledygook that makes my head hurt.

A bit harsh don't you think ?

Guy seems genuinely interested in discussing the topic.

digzy

opinion guy wrote: »

whayyyyy heyyyyyyyyyyy. the cavalry have arrived. anyone have a number for marti08? anyone.......anyone:rolleyes:

opinion guy

digzy wrote: »

opinion guy wrote: »

whayyyyy heyyyyyyyyyyy. the cavalry have arrived. anyone have a number for marti08? anyone.......anyone:rolleyes:

I have literally no idea what this means.

davo10

[/QUOTE]

A bit harsh don't you think ?

Guy seems genuinely interested in discussing the topic.[/Quote]

I think the notion that dental problems were one of the main reasons our prehistoric brethren died is a bit silly.

opinion guy

A bit harsh don't you think ?

Guy seems genuinely interested in discussing the topic.[/Quote]

I think the notion that dental problems were one of the main reasons our prehistoric brethren died is a bit silly.[/QUOTE]

Yeah fair enough - I actually missed that the first time around. But the guy still seemed to be asking a genuine question, no ?

davo10

Opinion Guy, the OP is presuming that prehistoric humans died from dental problems if wars didn't kill them, and then asks is this a message that we are not supposed to live beyond our 20's, and what do you think of this. To think that the evolution of man should have stopped because of dental infections is a little out there even for the OP. I would suspect the reason why readers think it is gobbledygook is because early man had a lot more to contend with than dental problems and there probably wasn't a lot of sugar-type foods available at the time.

Oral Surgeon

Caries killed off the dinosaurs- fact....

christmas2012

abcesses kill off animals aswell as humans if not treated in time it can cause septecemia which leads to blood poisioning and basically death..

Oral Surgeon

christmas2012 wrote: »

abcesses kill off animals aswell as humans if not treated in time it can cause septecemia which leads to blood poisioning and basically death..

Jimmy Hoffa too...

opinion guy

davo10 wrote: »

Opinion Guy, the OP is presuming that prehistoric humans died from dental problems if wars didn't kill them, and then asks is this a message that we are not supposed to live beyond our 20's, and what do you think of this. To think that the evolution of man should have stopped because of dental infections is a little out there even for the OP. I would suspect the reason why readers think it is gobbledygook is because early man had a lot more to contend with than dental problems and there probably wasn't a lot of sugar-type foods available at the time.

you missed this bit maybe:

opinion guy wrote: »

Yeah fair enough - I actually missed that the first time around. But the guy still seemed to be asking a genuine question, no ?

Big_G

opinion guy wrote: »

A bit harsh don't you think ?

Guy seems genuinely interested in discussing the topic.

I wasn't trying to be harsh, it's just that way the question is posed makes my head hurt. I have no idea how to answer the question because it makes little sense to me - it makes my head hurt. Maybe I'm stupid or something.

Boiling down human evolutionary influences to war and dental caries just makes my head hurt. In order to answer the question you would have to write about a 50000 word essay on caries and human evolution. And maybe one on basic science.

Dianthus

[Quote=christmas2012;

Is this a message that we are naturally not meant to live beyond our 20's or what,i mean in the days where there were no dentists and no knowledge of teeth or physicians,we bascially died at a certain age due to our teeth if tribal wars didnt get us first. What do you think or make of it?[/Quote]
Survival of the fittest.
Modern medicine/dentistry,& the modern diet has changed the game plan

Have a look at peoples' grocery shopping trolley. Have a look in your local dental surgery waiting room (majority adults, v few children). The choices are there, people make subconscious decisions about their future health all the time.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Khloe Unimportant Jeep wrote: »

This should be good.....

So far this is not a disappointment. However keep it civil chaps. BTW Marti8 is not welcome on the forum anymore, so we will all have to live without his words of wisdom.

Cailleachdubh

[Is this a message that we are naturally not meant to live beyond our 20's or what,i mean in the days where there were no dentists and no knowledge of teeth or physicians,we bascially died at a certain age due to our teeth if tribal wars didnt get us first.

What do you think or make of it?]

Can I just add a few points from the point of view of dental analysis of ancient skeletal remains? From what I have seen and read about, severe dental caries is a relatively modern phenomenon (ie Post-1600s) that grew progressively worse the more refined sugar became a common part of our diets. People are generally surprised to see how healthy the teeth of our ancient predecessors were!

So the worst teeth I've ever seen have been in skeletons from the 1800s and 1900s. In medieval and pre-historic times, the major dental problem was generally not caries, but attrition (heavy wear), due to a coarse diet including stone-ground flour etc. Heavy attrition can also lead to absesses in severe cases.

Though people were not immune to tooth decay in the past - and there is probably also a genetic component to dental enamel strength/weakness - tooth decay in itself was certainly not a major problem or major cause of death until post-industrial times.