How our ancestors drilled rotten teeth | Hacker News Reader

How our ancestors drilled rotten teeth

bbc.com

114 pointspepys54 comments

This article delves into a lot of speculation to the reason behind the increase of tooth decay in civilization. This issue was studied thoroughly 100 years ago [1] by a dentist who wanted to find control groups and get to the bottom of the issue instead of just speculate.

[1] http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/price/price9.html

In my mid-twenties I had a pretty bad cavity that for various reasons I didn't have filled right away. Although it was painful, I found myself sort of instinctively digging into it with different tools pretty much all the time. It just felt right, like trying to pop a deep pimple or scratching an itch. I can definitely see how primitive dentistry would be a thing.

After reading this, I was so glad that I was born in the 21st century! I can feel the pain by just looking at the monitor. The pain travels from thousand years ago and reaches my teeth!!

Medical science has come a long way in just the past century and a half. Not many stop to appreciate how far we have come and IMO how far we need to go. We still are unable to properly diagnose and treat most of the prevalent mental illnesses.

\tangent Apparently, according to the archeological record, we had fewer cavities before modern sugar - and even fewer before the grains of the agricultural revolution.

Civilization solves problems created by civilization.

Yes, they're called diseases of affluence. Heart disease from fatty foods and lack of exercise, obesity, and even, I suppose, things like drug addiction. I even remember reading some classical philosophy in which the philosopher noted doctors of the time loved to prescribe vigorous walking to all their wealthy patients.

>Heart disease from fatty foods

My understanding recently has been that cholesterol and other hypertension indicators are more strongly correlated with carbohydrates and genetics than fats.

Fair enough. I should have just said lifestyle.

Sugar, yes; not sure about grains, since they aren't as nutritious as traditional hunt/gather diets.

However, I saw a doc on manchu pichu, saying th

As someone about to go in for a root canal, I feel a bit better about how far medical science has come. :-)

Please consider getting the tooth extracted instead. At the very least, research root canals and make an informed decision.

I'll bite, do you have any sources? (no, Mercola doesn't apply).

I know I personally prefer (cosmetic benefit) of not loosing a tooth. Out of several people I know who have had root canals, all have been happy with the result...

Disclaimer: All have been upper middle income with relatively good dental insurance in the US.

And root canals can be fixed, and re-fixed, and re-re-fixed multiple times if things happen to go wrong. None of the alternatives we have so far come close to a natural tooth, even if it's just a crowned dead root stump.

The reason implants suck is that they don't have a peridontal ligament, instead they're rigidly attached to the bone. This means all kinds of issues like bone resorption due to non-absorbed shocks, lack of an natural immune barrier, poor proprioception.

I've done a whole lot of individual research in the last two months, consulted with two dentists and an endo, gotten opinions from friends and family etc... seeing that any procedure is irreversible, it seems prudent to take the least drastic option first. I don't have a particular concern about recurrent infection in this case, because my diagnosis is about trauma, not decay. What concerns do you have?

Even in case of recurrent infections, re-treatments have good long term success levels.

I know one thing that hasn't been too good for my teeth is GERD.

I wonder if that's a contributing factor. Maybe it was not a common ailment before agriculture.

Speculatively, there seems to be a double whammy effect of carbohydrate consumption when it comes to teeth.

(1) direct effect of sugar/carbs feeding bacteria in the mouth which produce acid which etches away at enamel, (2) indirect effect of pleasure/getting 'high', which assists oral bacteria by suppressing the immune system

I've never seen a discussion including (2), or gauging its relative importance. The effect seems to be more pronounced with harder drugs like crack cocaine.

Crack cocaine doesn't affect teeth because "the high affects the immune system". Crack cocaine affects the teeth because

1) Poor dental hygiene

2) Poor nutrition

3) mostly because it causes dry mouth

4) it can cause tooth grinding

Telling people who use crack to chew sugar free gum would help a bit.

Another suggestion might be to not consume crack cocaine and instead seek help in the form of rehab. It is much better than sugar free gum.

Crack addicts are more likely to take gum crewing advice than addiction advice.

Good points about dry mouth and grinding. Also I wonder if crack and amphetamines are directly acidic.

Are you sure though that pleasure doesn't affect the immune system? It seems logical that it would from an evolutionary point of view. Pleasure and its anticipation are forms of arousal like stress; downgrading non-essential or non-urgent systems is worth it for a chance at mating or a successful kill during a hunt. It seems to me that levels of inflammation and tooth decay increase in my body after several days of over-indulgence -- including activities like eating cake!

Our ancestors might have been 'indirectly' taking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenoxymethylpenicillin

How?

Reader's Digest Version - Rotten teeth weren't really much of a problem until we started living from agriculture in earnest. By then we had already mastered stone arrow tips, which scrape away decay as well from your teeth as from other bones. So some smaller stone tips are likely tooth scrapers or microflint drills.

Thank you for this. I was curious, but didn't want to see any images of rotting or drilled teeth. Did they also mention lifespan issues? I expect rotting teeth is less of an issue if you don't live past 50.

There are plenty of people getting major dental work done before their 30's.

I have couple of friends that had to get implants and they kept quite a good dental hygiene.

Bleaching, diet, life style and genetics potentially play a more critical role than age.

If they're getting multiple non-wisdom teeth pulled before age 30, methamphetamines are likely a big part of their lifestyle.

You're getting downvoted but that's exactly what happened to my mother. In the 1950s doctors prescribed methamphetamine to overweight children. It was considered a miracle cure. Worked great! But her first root canal was at 19 and it went downhill quickly from there.

I'm just repeating what I've been told by half a dozen dentists. Meth addicts get pretty good at fooling people, but they don't fool many dentists.

This isn't the US none of them are using meth, my GF's father lost most of the teeth by 45, my GF for 6 years now is using what I call "Industrial Strength" toothpaste (3000 PPM fluoride) which was prescribed by the dentist because she were getting lesions left and right on her teeth which could lead to cavities, she was also ordered to stop using mouthwash because it apparently kills the "wrong" bacteria and to stay away from gum and soda.

Can Meth fuck up your teeth? sure, so can working in a sulfur mine it doesn't mean that everyone who has dental issues is a meth head.

There is plenty for room for genetics and lifestyle to affect your teeth without having to go into social extremes. And while some what anecdotal but on the other hand I open beer bottles with my teeth, I used to smoke for almost 10 years, didn't use to really brush that regularly especially between say the ages of 10 to 18 and I didn't had a single cavity yet.

And in one occasion when I had to get some dental work on a wisdom tooth that needed to be ground down a bit to not hit my upper gum the dentist said I was lucky and that my teeth were like 2000 year old cement and that he had to increase the water flow to keep the tooth and the drill head cool. Different people have different teeth there is variation in tooth composition and density between people just like with bones and many other body parts. Add to that different bacterial ecosystems, different immunoresponse, different saliva production (amount, mineral count, acidity etc.) and you get a large spectrum of outcomes for your teeth even without you doing meth or getting constant preventative dental treatment.

I lost 4 teeth to my orthodontist in my teens - certainly no meth involved.

Thanks, people are already blaming life expentancy for it, but it's very much a lifestyle issue. [0]

It's impossible to deny the link between tooth decay, sugars and acidic diets and bacteria growth. On a sidenote, kissing your child when you have caries might also not be such a good idea. [1]

[0] http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/DataStatistics/FindDataByTopic/Dent...

[1] http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1678...

This is by no means a criticism. I'm guessing you've got French roots (based on the use of the word caries instead of cavities). It made me smile to see!

We use caries in Australia as well.

We do? I've never heard it used in place of cavities.

We definitely use both.

I hear professionals use 'caries' when talking professionally, and 'cavities' when talking to layfolk. I've not heard non-professionals use caries much here in Aus. Mileage may vary, I guess.

source: not a dentist, but have had a bunch of dental work done...

Caries is the appropriate medical terminology.

Source: wife is a dentist.

Neat! Thanks for teaching me something today!

I always assumed caries was the generic term for tooth decay of any severity, while cavities are the holes you get if caries isn't stopped.

I worked with a waitress , whom died from a bad tooth . She wasn't able to receive care due to being working poor. I was thinking just today our system of health care is a regressive tax on the poor. a single payer system would be progressive taxation for the wealthy , if they needed extra value medical services , big deal they could afford it . They could afford to go to walled gardens ; for exclusive care. I shouldn't be to harsh , after all they support the Luxury economy !

Dentists have a code of ethics just as any other doctor. Any legitimate dentist would have cared for the patient since it was an emergency situation. Most, again legitimate, dentists would have worked with the patient to write it off or do the work pro bono. They're humans like the rest of us and many of them care for their patients deeply. There are those that ruin the reputation for the upstanding, but that doesn't represent dentists as a whole. I think you're conflating two exclusive ideas here. Keep in mind dentistry is one of the few areas of practice in the United States that will provide estimates up front, prior to treatment. Dentists are one of the easier areas of health care to "shop" comparatively.

It's not necessarily that simple.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02...

All-on-one-page "Print" link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02...

You're right about all of that, but think about it from the perspective of a poor person who has never been to the dentist, who likely wasn't taught good oral hygiene as a child, and whose teeth have been a source of nothing but pain and stress for years. If she knew a dentist well enough to feel comfortable having the "I'd like to pay on time" conversation, she would have that conversation. If she had ever been to a dentist, she might know a dentist that well. If her teeth weren't a mess already, she might feel comfortable calling for a first appointment. None of those circumstances apply, however.

You are turning this discussion into a political debate for what reason?

because he is pissed-off and wealthy people are such an easy-to-blame-for-it-all target these days.

forget that everybody is responsible for their own health. rich are just pure evil, right? :)

I say this as I sit in a waiting room facing a root canal I can't afford. I have good teeth, and take care of them. A tooth I had filled 7 months ago seems to be senitive and sore. I have health insurance but doesn't cover dental. Dentists are expensive!

Sorry but your argument is too easy. Taxation or lack of it would be directly why some people have tons of money and why other people don't have life saving services. Wealthy people are in part to blame for the system just as the tax system is. Blaming poor people? That's low.

Fact, money equals speech, wealthy have more speech and thus more control over government and taxation. More speech, more control, more blame.

you are claiming that "rich people" don't pay taxes but this is mostly a false claim. It's the effective rate that they can bring down. Warren Buffet pays millions in taxes, for example.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/10/23/warren-buffe...

Yes, we are all aware he pays millions. Proportional to income, I pay more taxes than Warren. With that, the crux of the problem presents.

I never claimed rich don't pay taxes. Nothing short of you putting words in my mouth makes me doubt the validity of this interaction because A. you simply don't know better, or B. You are purposefully manipulating my meaning. With either case, I can safely conclude there is no point in continuing because you are trolling, or dumb.

This comment breaks the HN guidelines. Please remain civil when posting here, even when you think someone else is wrong.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

That horrid Obama Care does cover routine dental care.

In know in CA, if you qualify for medi-cal, you have more options than in the past.

According to this site, it does not: http://obamacarefacts.com/dental-insurance/dental-insurance/

"Dental insurance, for the most part, isn’t covered under ObamaCare (the Affordable Care Act)...

"Even with cost assistance, when you reach the maximum,you typically pay 100% of the costs for dental work. This is the opposite of health insurance under the ACA where you pay 0% after your maximum.

"Dental works best for routine care, it is uncommon to find any insurance that covers major dental work past a certain dollar amount. ('The Dental Gap'?)

Here's a news story in which someone died due to a tooth infection: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/insurance-24-year-dies-toothach...

"When dentists told him it needed to be pulled, he decided to forgo the procedure, because he was unemployed and had no health insurance...

"When his face started swelling and his head began to ache, Willis went to the emergency room, where he received prescriptions for antibiotics and pain medications. Willis couldn't afford both, so he chose the pain medications.

"The tooth infection spread, causing his brain to swell. He died Tuesday"

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