When Did We Start Getting Cavities? 

I’m a dentist and I must tell you, more important than the amount of sugar(which isn’t good for your teeth or body in general), is also the consistency of food. Pasty or sticky food once you’ve chewed on it is a big factor.

The birds are laughing at us.

What I’m more amazed about is that science still cannot kill off streptococcus mutans yet when it’s like public enemy #1 for millions of years.

(slams gameshow buzzer) cavities first appeared on scale at the dawn of agriculture as our teeth were less adapted to the amount carbohydrate in our diets. Time to see if that book I read years ago was accurate.

We're the pugs of the homosapien world

Fluoride and dental hygiene are killing off cavities. People like me who grew up in the pre-fluoride days had 9 fillings on average at age 20. Today it's less than one.

67 year male, 10 year ago I changed from a healthy(?) plant based diet, with very little junk food to a ketogenic diet, I have not had any dental issues in that time. From age 10 to 57 I estimate I had over 30 fillings, some molars have been retreated 3 or more times. I still get my teeth checked/cleaned at the dentist twice a year as I have a mouthful of old fillings. The dentist asked what I did after a few visits with no new dental cavities, I said I changed my diet to one low is sugar and high in fat soluble vitamins, she was not interested.

I've found that a lot of tooth health, also depends on your electrolyte intake. Not talking about the salty sugary colored water that's sold at stores. I'm talking about the minerals which provide building blocks for good health. Calcium Chloride Magnesium Phosphorus Potassium Sodium Sodium Chloride is known as table salt and carries both items, Potassium is found in jacketed potatoes and bananas, Calcium is found in cow milk, but also spinach, tofu*, and yogurt, pumpkin seeds for Magnesium and Phosphorus, Phosphorus also is found in tofu, milk, and pumpkin seeds in high doses. If you go to the WebMD article called "foods high in electrolytes", you can see a short list of foods that are easy to get each of these elements which are good for keeping those teeth solid and your gums from wanting to yeet your teeth. Just remember that washing all this down with water will allow you to flush out excess amounts and prevent kidney stones from forming. Of course, removing highly flavored items from your diet will allow you to stomach water, if you can't seem to want to drink it.

My mom has naturally highly acidic saliva and she got periodontal disease even though she did everything she's supposed to. 😅

Also we love longer than most animals. But like, even dogs and cats get gum diseases and cavities.

Great video

I really think genetics plays in to teeth a lot. Growing up i honestly just didnt brush my teeth. My parents never made sure i did so i didn't. You know many cavities ive had in my entire life? 2. One was in a baby tooth, and the other was barely a cavity, one of the smallest my dentists had ever seen. I didn't eat a different diet than most if anything i ate more junk food than others. I know people whos religiously brushed their teeth and still have a problem with cavities. But one thing i did have as a kid was reoccuring strep in 2nd-3rd grade, along with so many other random sicknesses - i missed SO much school. Had strep 6 times in a row in one year and then i was never sick again until college, when, you guessed it, i got strep TWICE in a row within 3 months. Im still not the best at brushing but to this day i havent had a cavity since mid high school. Maybe having super crowded (but straight, only needed a palate expander as a kid) teeth plays a factor. I dont eat a ton a sweets, and not a lot of citrus things either. Maybe i have a diet that is less likely to develop cavities. Who knows. Or maybe i just have a super strong immune system given im never sick, and so i fight off the bacteria easily. Maybe i drink a lot of water and that helps. Theres so many factors, but in my family it was never common for people to have cavities that i know of. Only one person had dentures but the rest of them in their old age have all their teeth. My family is very irish btw, which i wouldnt think has anything to do with having good teeth genes. But thought id throw that out there.

Also, maybe our ancestors where chewing some plants, that have anti-bacterial substances in it ...

I think alkaline water stopped my cavities over the past 2 years (

Even Red Pandas- who love fruit- are vulnerable to cavities :(

Small note at 4:43, 'Example of Homo Sapien' - it's Homo sapiens, not Homo sapien, as sapiens is already singular in Latin

So... Did they brush?

One aspect I see about teeth ancient vs modern is the alignment of teeth. Have you guys found stuff about it?

I've been to Grottes des Pigeons before! Or its actual name, Taforalt.

I hate my teeth and fear the dentist (pain in both the mouth and financial!). I wish I could save enough money just to be done with them and get a set of dentures made! But I'm too poor to afford health insurance let alone the cost of getting dentistry done. 😢

If you double tap rewind really fast at the start of the video he says "TEETH" really fast. 😁

Because we're mostly evolved as carnivores.

Personally I am glad that there is an end in sight for at least to some of our dental troubles. What with teeth regrowing medicine entering human trials

I've never had a cavity and I just turned 35. I really don't think it has much to do with what you eat and how much you brush or floss. I have always eaten a ton of sugar and was really bad about brushing when I was a kid. My dad has never had a cavity either. It's mostly genetic. Oh, and my teeth are pretty crooked, even after braces when I was a teen. On the flip side, my gums are terrible. If I don't floss every day, I get bad pockets in my gums. So I may some day lose all my teeth without ever having a cavity! 😢

Just one word - floss. I stopped getting cavities when I started doing so - as much as I can, also using those tooth pickers.

I’ve never had a cavity and I’m 27. I’ve never had any dental problem actually except bottom wisdom teeth removal. But I definitely eat a lot of sugar lol… genetics on the microlevel scale for sure. There’s still time for me to get one as I get older of course but my mom is 58 and has never had a dental problem. I’m glad I didn’t because I was neglected as a child and never would’ve gotten dental care, it could’ve been terrible. I did not visit a dentist once until I was 22. They couldn’t believe my teeth were fine.. I couldn’t either 😂

I missed it. When did we start brushing? Timestamp please? Is this a click bait? I knew about cavities I am interested in brushing!

Human “I want to be able to agriculture” Monkey paw “okay, and streptococcus is along for the ride” Human “strepto whom? Whatevs, wish me, Monkey friend”

"modern levels of tooth decay" doesn't tell the whole story though because we have much better dental hygiene products available than our ancestors did.

Good example at 4:44 but he is a Homo sapiens. A single human is still a Homo sapiens; you don't singularize "sapiens" for an individual. Anyway, still a good one!

Dangit I KNEW I would see a Jared Diamond source in here. This dude is not well respected in the anthropology world and I'd really advise double checking his material before using it

Flossing my teeth with toothpaste cause of this vid

Wow, you always come up with facts that I wouldn't have thought about before. My husband and I also started a youtube channel to educate and inspire like you guys!

... hands full *

WHY Didn't permanent teach evolve like Nails or bone .

don't talk about my Ancestors, you don't know them

The latter “s” in sapiens is not for denoting plural. 🫣 4:44

Why the video, I just had my molar extracted and come to see this video lol

Why can't we make a vaccine for this bacterium that works?

When did people stop getting a 3rd set of teeth? (the pill that is currently under testing in japan to regrow a missing tooth (or teeth) works through some gene (for a 3rd set) that is deactivated in humans, now.

I have a lot of difficulty brushing my teeth (yay autism) but despite that I have a pretty average level of cavities and my father's side of the family is known for "strong teeth" and my plaque buildup is very slow. My dentist told me recently that it's actually something to do with my saliva, which was very briefly mentioned in this video too: I'd like to know more! I keep meaning to ask my dentist about it but every time I see her I forget lol

Evolution gave some animals the ability to regrow teeth and gave humans special brains (creativity, abstract thinking, you know the drill). Still we spend hundreds of billions/year in the dental offices. WHY are we still so primitive? Can't we even copy nature in the age of DNA editing?!

Animals don't get cavities because they don't brush their teeth. Dentists want you to brush so they can have a decent living. I have not brushed my teeth for 34 years and never had a tooth ache. I have all my teeth. Moreover, scraping the calculus off has nothing to do with health but they won't tell you that. Calculus is what is formed when saliva mixes with fluoride and fills microscopic cavities before they get too big. So why scrape it off anyway? Makes no sense. Dentistry is cosmetic surgery. Tooth whitening my make your teeth look better. It of course has nothing to do with health, just another way to make more money for them.

Please stop putting sponsor ads in the middle of videos. It's bad enough that RU-vid already does this.

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tEeth

That’s a pretty fancy pronunciation for, “The Pigeon Hole” (4:51)…

I honestly thought this video would touch on the subject about how as humans industrialized their agriculture, they began to eat more mushy foods that didnt work the jaw or promote it tooth strength by anchoring the tooth root to the gums better. This is actually why you see people who lived in cities tend to have worse dental health and more tooth decay over those who lived in the farmland areas who didnt process their own food as much and had ready access to livestock and orchards, so the excess chewing not only strengthened their jaws but helped align their teeth.

Wait, but what did the ancients do when they had cavities? Those hurt like hell, did they just suffer for the rest of their lives or got creative methods of getting rid of them? Maybe I should read after this, because a world where 94% of everyone is in constant pain due to bad teeth is just too dark to believe.

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Conclusion: Animal cruelty is good for your health.

So the bacteria evolve and adapt - and we don't.

I have never followed and dentist's "treatment plan," because the second opinion always invalidated it.

BCE? What's the era common to?

Ok, you’re throwing around percentages like there’s a fire sale. You need to clarify for us viewers, what exactly each claimed percentage is of. Is it % of teeth, people, people with cavities? 94% 15%?

4:40 Shouldn’t the caption say “Example of Homo sapiens”?

This is what we need gene engineering for. Not to ‘cure’ autism but to cure mouth cavities

Correction: Homo sapiens is not plural. Sapiens is a singular word.

WTF does ya mean 2:44

Damn you agricultural revolution! and industrial revolution too! I’m not sure that we were happier pre agriculture but we sure were a metric f#ck ton happier pre industrial times. Hand me the keys to the time machine quick!

No sugar and no refined flower. Have you ever seen an animal brush their teeth? Me neither. We are rotting our own teeth by the garbage we eat.

To everyone in the comments: Cry about it.

i believe teeth wont evolve over time to be better unless we get rid of toothpaste

Who’s brushing their teeth atm? Lmaooo

brb, I just need to go and brush my teeth.

You're not kidding. I've maxed out my dental benefits 2 years in a row, and I still have a lot of dental work to do.

Nah, the real crime, is we only have two sets of teeth. GMO me baby, give me them shark-style tooth conveyer!

I'm a bit sad that the question shown in the thumbnail "did they brush" was not actually answered in this video

Also, the foods we eat are softer, so our jaws don't grow as much, leading to crowded teeth. This gives the bacteria more hiding places.

I'm so glad to live in a time with easy access to dental care tools. I have bad oral genetics, so I'd totally be missing several teeth by now (33yo)

Ancient people had a good strategy of fighting cavities by not living long enough to get them

Mostly has to do with your type of Insurance coverage.

I just four cavities filled, a root canal and there's three more cavities in my teeth. I hate my teeth 😭😭

I would like to add some things, for clarity 1- Agricultural revolution not only brought cavities but also periodontal disease (which includes gingivitis) to a higher prevalence. 2- S. mutans and its related mutans group are not the only microorganisms associated with caries, and in fact, inhabit in the saliva of most humans, many times without actually producing cavities since there are other factors associated (mentioned in the video) which have nearly as much importance as the microbial influence. P.S: since we normally don't use antibiotics to treat caries, even if they get resistances, there shouldn't be much problem with removing cavities since that's a purely mechanical approach, but assessing what risks to our systemic health could a superbacteria inhabiting our mouths bring us is definitely an interesting research topic.

In a scishow tangent episode, Stefan said that he only brushes his teeth once a day. Was it before bedtime? I remember that coz the gang was flabbergasted, kinda'. 😂

I have really good dental genetics, cuz when I was growing up I remember eating lots of sugars and sweets even till now I still do, despite not even having bad dental hygiene but even as that I still ain't got a single scratch on my teeth

Mouth hygiene, super important. Also weirdly easy to do as maintenance.

A decade or more ago, I heard of this mutated version of streptococcus mutans that didn't produce lactic acid, and it was to be added to some candies that would replace the wild type in peoples mouths and stop cavities. I haven't heard of them since. What happened?

I had 22 of mine pulled because of an infection as a complication from amelogenesis imperfecta. Teeth are dumb. Human teeth especially.

Can't believe you didn't bring up xylitol.

George Washington had wooden teeth, so why do I have to brush my teeth every single day? :3

We really need CRISPR or something to fix our teeth to be better

my teeth are crowded, and my gums are extremely pathetic from a genetic condition that makes all my surface tissue super easily injured, but somehow ive never had a cavity, or even gingivitis- i sure have a ton of nightmares about it though

I think it's also important to keep in mind some other factors, being our life expectancy and frequency of eating. Back in the day we usually just died earlier, making teeth problems less of a concern and if you just don't eat every day, which wasn't weird back in the day you also leave a lot less nutrients for the bacteria to

Another major contributing factor (particularly in more primitive populations) is the use of teeth as tools - an interesting topic on its own!

BC#Before christ BS#before sugar

My family has what's been called mulberry teeth. The ridges in our molars have tiny ridges that are almost impossible to keep free of food debris. Almost everyone has had horrible cavities shortly after our adult teeth emerge.

Don't forget Weston Price's research on the diets of peoples who had very few cavities.

Well, we named a province in the Philippines, after that.... In singular form...

You failed to mention that toothpaste have abrasive agent and some people brush their teeth very vigorously that it does more damage than good, leading to cavities.

i swish with hydrogen peroxide... "good" bacteria be damned

maybe with science we will one day be able to shed and grow teeth like sharks

The most important thing is sugar frequency and not the amount. With frequency - more often acid will be around teeth and saliva won't have enough time to rinse it away (remineralize enamel). Additionally frequent acid "rinse" will alter oral microbiome and increase the amount of "cariogenic" bacteria and kill "healthy" bacteria. Furthermore Strep. Mutans is NOT the only bacteria causing caries, and regarding acid there are bacteria that produce it more. Cavities are not caused by a single microorganism. sincerely a person doing PhD in oral microbiology

90+ % of humans? What? Really? Then at 60 years old now I feel super fortunate to be in that 9% who have never had a cavity. No clue how that happened because I would consider myself only a mildly attentive brusher. I’m guessing diet and genetics must have a large roll in this, but both my parents and siblings have cavities.

I missed it. When did we start brushing? Timestamp please? Is this a click bait? I knew about cavities I am interested in brushing!

wow... making a bunch of off-hand assertions that simply aren't true...

Adding to the conversation around teeth health and genetics: There is also a group of genetic connective tissue disorder called Ehlers-Danlos-Syndrome and they found a new subtype (type VIII periodontitis type) a few years ago solely based on a whole family’s bad teeth history. Their gums were extremely affected and they lost ALL teeth by the age of 40. I have a different genetic connective tissue disorder in the COL2A1 gene (not yet classified) but they tested me for that one above too because my teeth are SO bad. My autoimmune disorder and the medications play a role too. I‘m 40 now and currently in the process for dentures.

When I had bad teeth eating sugary stuff would make my teeth hurt, but eating fruit was fine. Drinking soda was the worst. Seems like carbonation plus sugar are very bad, probably because carbonation makes soda acidic.

Fascinating video to watch while munching on a sweet frozen ice cream bar. But yeah, the most important part of tooth health that we have control over is keeping the "scuzzies" & plaque buildup off your teeth. I love that we have modern dessert apples because eating them makes my teeth feel so scrubbed and clean, haha