What Neanderthals' healthy teeth tell us about their minds | Hacker News Reader

What Neanderthals' healthy teeth tell us about their minds

bbc.com

80 pointsdiodorus10 comments

Fascinating article, and one that reminds me that a police officer friend of mine told me. It was a few years ago, and he said the local police HQ once got a call from a dirt bike rider on a remote beach saying that he had discovered a couple of skeletons half buried in the sand.

Knowing that the area was on a known Aboriginal ancient burial site, the unit dispatched to investigate (which included my friend) took an anthropologist from the local university with them to check the scene.

Apparently when they got there, the anthropologist took one look at the skulls of the skeletons and within a couple of seconds proclaimed that they were native aboriginal skeletons (possibly a married couple buried together) and that it pre dated modern civilisation in the area and was probably 100 to 200 years old.

My friend was curious about how she could tell so quickly, and she said it was the teeth. They showed absolutely no signs of decay caused by modern processed sugar diets.

That one story alone caused me to pause and change my dietary habits.

Most tooth loss is caused by bacteria that lots of people are immune or resistant to, not diet. It's something that people don't talk about much; I'm immune to cavities, and wouldn't know that such a thing were possible if I wasn't, and dentists hadn't told me. It's not uncommon around the world, but I think it's generally recessive. Large groups of native Americans were immune to cavities, a lot of Melanesian and Polynesian groups, and if you say that native Australians were, you'd expect to see it in southern India.

Again - I eat piles of processed sugar, I'm middle-aged, I've never had a cavity, and I've been told that without extreme neglect, I never will.

IIRC, it's difficult to develop a vaccine for cavities because it would also cause the immune system to attack certain sorts of tissue around the heart and vascular system. Neanderthals may have just tended to a different biochemistry that allowed them to develop natural immunity.

Interesting. Never knew that it was genetically possible to be immune from cavities. I know that my father (Sri Lankan heritage) never had to have a filling in his life, but at the rate my parents enforced dental care onto me and my sisters, I assumed that it was that fact alone. Sounds like there may have been some genetic predisposition there, and I could have gone to bed the odd time without brushing my teeth and feel as though some dental caries demon was going to come along and rot them all green! ;)

And I was slightly overstating the case - those bacteria eat sugars, so if you're not immune or resistant, diet does matter. I don't think the bacteria care if those sugars are processed, though. As a Sri Lankan, you're likely sharing a lot of DNA with those native Australian skulls with beautiful teeth:)

I have the same thing. I've never had a cavity, and have been repeatedly told that I probably never will (mid-30's).

But on the other hand, I was warned that gum disease will be my nemesis.

I suspect that I may be immune to cavities. I brush my teeth quite rarely, and I've never had a cavity.

Upon saying that, I have a diet very low in simple sugars. I have full European heritage as far as I know though, and none of the rest of my family are immune to cavities. So maybe it's just luck. I do have a plaque (calculus) buildup at the bottom of my teeth next to the gum though, which isn't great.

"It is becoming clearer that this was far from the case. One recent study actually suggests that Neanderthals lost fewer teeth than humans with equivalent diets."

Is there even such a thing as an equivalent diet? There are potentially harmful substances in just about everything these days, including foods that claim to be natural and free of any growth-inducing chemicals. And we don't even know what kind of effects most of these have on human body.

>Is there even such a thing as an equivalent diet?

I guess the closest thing is the Paleo diet.

Well Neanderthals did coexist with humans for a (relatively) brief period, so I'm guessing they mean Neanderthals and Humans that ate a similar diet in the same general time period.

I assumed they were referring to the diets of those humans that were alive at the same time as the Neanderthals.

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