this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] psud@aussie.zone 30 points 1 day ago (6 children)

The teeth thing is just because of our high sugar, high grain diet

The first* people with bad dental health were Egyptians as they lived on bread (which packs your teeth and feeds the bacteria that ferment it and make acid) before that, and until the invention spread, people died of old age with all their teeth intact

I eat very low carb - almost entirely meat due to allergies, and haven't had a cavity since I started doing that, despite me nearly never brushing or flossing my teeth

*There were also people who lived in the tropics and ate a lot of fruit, and those with sugar cane.

[–] booly@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Teeth can need work from physical trauma, too. Getting hit in the head while hunting or fighting or just hiking might cause a cracked tooth, which can be deadly in the absence of dental care. Or just while eating, sometimes a stray rock or bone fragment or shell might cause an issue.

Lots of other species can regrow teeth in adulthood, even a handful of other mammals. All sorts of animals can have tooth problems in the wild, so I wouldn't assume that prehistoric humans were exempt from that general danger.

[–] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Sure. All sorts of things would kill you, and a dental injury would be a crap way to die. The ancient stuff is from preserved hunter gatherer skeletons.

We, fortunately, have excellent dental care available so people hardly ever die of a broken tooth, I know about my lack of cavities from a pair of several x-rays and a check up while replacing a filling from when I ate the common diet

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm 9 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Brush your teeth bud. People can probably smell your breath from a mile away.

[–] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

You'd think. But where does the bad smell come from?

My understanding is it's from overactive bacteria; I don't feed my mouth bacteria with food that makes them smell

At least my partner still kisses me

[–] Eiri@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I do intermittent fasting.

My breath stinks quite a bit on days I don't eat. The bacteria develop very well on those days, since they're not being washed off as often. And that's before "keto breath" even comes into play.

Point is, your mouth bacteria are fine producing all sorts of "charming" smells even without food.

You probably do stink. The two of you are just used to it.

[–] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 5 hours ago

How do you think you can know when your breath is bad and I can't?

You didn't say what you feed your mouth bacteria aside from saying you only do so occasionally.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 1 points 10 hours ago

Some people get off on eating ass

[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 16 hours ago

brushing your teeth doesnt do much for bad breath. You want to clean the rest of your mouth to get rid of that, which is probably what they do.

[–] Lux18@lemmy.world 28 points 22 hours ago

You never brush your teeth? It's not only good for health dude

[–] Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 10 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

I thought Egyptians had bad teeth because their flour was ground with sandstone, leaving sand in their bread. They ground their teeth into nothing by eating sand.

[–] psud@aussie.zone 4 points 13 hours ago

I feel like the sand thing was a guess by people who couldn't pick why ancient Egyptians had worse teeth than everyone else in the ancient world

If there's sand in your food you notice and it feels bad. It's not something that makes you go "oh well I'll just keep chomping" and that would wear teeth down, not give them abscesses

this is also common with older bread. Another reason why it's bad, it's probably both though.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Similar. I don't eat low carbs, just almost no bread, and my teeth never get cavities

[–] mugthol@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 22 hours ago

Yeah but that can also be because of genetics. I eat bread everyday and still never had a cavity

[–] psud@aussie.zone 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I note that birds, which evolved eating grains, don't have teeth

[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 6 points 22 hours ago

Birds originally did have teeth. Beaks are thought to have replaced teeth because they serve the same purpose but are much lighter, and more importantly because they develop faster than teeth. Birds considerably predate grasses (which are what grains are).

[–] mihor@lemmy.ml 1 points 23 hours ago

Now THAT'S intelligent design!

[–] HereIAm@lemmy.world -5 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Yeeeah but they also only lived to like 30.

[–] watersnipje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Those low life expectancies are typically due to high infant deaths. Once you are like 10 or so, the life expectancy is much higher, and more informative. The life expectancy at birth is in many cases a bit misleading.

[–] HereIAm@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

That's fair. It was just my understanding that one of the leading causes to death was that the teeth started to rot away. I clearly need to brush up on my human history a bit!