Many Factors Found to Impact Oral Health Habits, Including Diet, Gender

Findings from the first comprehensive study on the oral health of a population in transition from a foraging, wild-food diet to an agriculture-based diet indicate that oral health is affected not just by diet, but also by gender and behavior differences between men and women.

Peter Ungar, Distinguished Professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas, and Alyssa Crittenden, Lincy Assistant Professor of anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, worked with New York dentist, John Sorrentino, on the research published today in the journal PloS One.

“The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture is routinely associated with a decline in oral health,” Ungar said, “because of increased consumption of carbohydrates and growth of bacterial colonies in dental plaque linked to the development of tooth decay.”

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See how diet has given us an idea about ancestral dental habits – read more here.

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