There are many advantages that place us in a higher evolutionary step than the rest of the species that inhabit this planet, but, in terms of teeth, we have little to boast about.
There are many animal species with magnificent teeth, and there are animal species that have magnificent teeth, and this without any of the care that humans require associated with oral hygiene.
Photo: taken from Facebook
We go hand in hand with Artificial Intelligence, we explore space, quantum physics and we even talk about possible space-time travel, but nothing established to make new teeth sprout when the permanent ones break down and no innovation to definitively prevent cavities.
Photo: Freepik
However, recent research published in the scientific journal of Molecular Biology and Evolutionary Biology of the University of Oxford reveals why our ancestors had relatively healthy teeth.
The archaeological remains show in very diverse investigations that cavities were rare in our distant relatives and so much so that it was only with the first great civilizations that the first evidence of oral hygiene practices was found.
They speak of them, for example, 3,000 BC, certain frayed wands that the Babylonians and Egyptians used to brush; while the Chinese, in 1,600 BC, used a certain device with branches of aromatic trees to freshen breath.
One of the first toothbrushes. Photo: taken from Quora
The truth is that the aforementioned study, carried out by researchers from Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), managed to recover microbiomes – a set of microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi and others, that live in a given environment, in this case, in the teeth. – very well preserved two teeth belonging to an adult male from 4,000 years ago and found in an Irish cave.
Scientists from Ireland have managed to recover the microbiome of human teeth from 4,000 years ago. Photo: Dr. Lara Cassidy
Such genetic studies of dental microbiomes revealed important changes in the oral microenvironment from the Bronze Age to the present.
In particular, they achieved the first high-quality ancient genome of Streptococcus mutans, a Gram-positive, anaerobic bacteria primarily responsible for cavities, whose presence, despite being common in the mouths of this present, was exceptionally rare in the record. genomics of ancestors.
One reason for the scarcity of S. mutans in ancient mouths may be the lack of favorable habitats for this sugar-loving species.
The rise in dental cavities can be seen in archaeological studies after the adoption of cereal agriculture thousands of years ago, and in the last few hundred years, with the introduction of sugary foods into daily diets. When there is a much more significant increase in that bacteria… and cavities.
Photo: Shutterstock
The team also found evidence supporting the disappearing microbiome hypothesis, which states that modern microbiomes are less diverse than those of our ancestors, which may affect human health.
Together with S. mutans, they found two genomes of another bacteria that affects the gums, T. forsythia, with broad differences between them, which supports the hypothesis that ancient humans had more diverse oral microbiomes.
“These ancient single-mouth strains were more genetically different from each other than any pair of modern strains in our data set, even though the modern samples came from Europe, Japan and the United States,” says ancient genome expert Iseult Jackson. from Trinity College Dublin – and this represents a significant loss of diversity that we need to better understand.
