No one escapes death, taxes and cavities.
If there is something that seems to have no way out, when we talk about things of the palate, is undoubtedly of tooth decay. Surely many of you have had occasion to go to the dentist for some other filling. And that, despite that oral hygiene habits are common and although you may still insufficient.
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I'm sure many of you may not know, is that caries is a result of some acids that release a number of bacteria in our mouth. The odd thing though is that cavities have been with us for a long time, only in the Neolithic, after the advent of agriculture in many places, cavities began to abound in the fossil record of teeth. The most fascinating part is that the bacteria that cause tooth decay co-evolved with our changing diet, adapting to our diet and prosper.
The decay
As we all know, tooth decay is directly related to the consumption of sugars and carbohydrates. These sugars are those which serve as food for bacteria, principally Streptococcus mutans, which ferment sugar causing lactic acid makes it go dissolving the tooth mineral. If this exceeds demineralization mineralization, with time, will end forming cavities.
Of course, good oral hygiene can help in this balance of mineralization and mineralization. On one hand, the fluorine can help mineralization, and the act of brushing the structure mechanically removes bacteria that are created to be growing. Furthermore, there are also factors such as the pH of the saliva or genetic factors that may predispose to have more or fewer cavities in one or other persons.
Globally, as you can see in the chart below, countries with more cavities per 100,000 inhabitants are the Middle East, Central America, south and southeast Asia, is I think why?
The development of caries
Come up with the most interesting part of the story. Appeared about 10,000 years ago agriculture, and as already mentioned a few times, also brought its own problems. Among them, cavities, and thus its main cause the bacterium Streptococcus mutans. This bacterium is unique to the human mouth, our mothers infected with it, and stay there until we die.
Well, researchers at Cornell University have studied the bacteria taking samples from the mouth of different human populations and found very interesting results. A major characteristics of bacteria is their ability to exchange large pieces of DNA between them. S. mutans, proves to be a germ that came very well that the man discovered agriculture. In fact, she herself suffered a lot of mutations just in the same period in which farming appeared.
For example, in this period, acquired genes to metabolize different types of sugars as well as to compete and kill other bacteria of the mouth. This at them they came in handy as a species we sparked a veritable epidemic of cavities which coincided with the emergence of agriculture and surely our adaptive response, through culture, was the creation of dental hygiene rituals have come, improved to this day.
The future of caries
That sugar and carbohydrates, we promote tooth decay is something we knew for a long time. Maybe for more than 10,000 years. What we now know is who is the main cause of tooth decay, and studies like the quote, you could give us new ideas to fight tooth more specifically. For now, and until we find a cure of this type, it is best, as always, limit our consumption of sugars and of course, maintain proper and regular oral hygiene. Remember, the idea is to give to the S. mutans, life a bit more difficult.
Sources: Wikipedia and Carl Zimmer, phenomena.nationalgeographic.com
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