On Tue, 18 Jul 2000, matesz wrote:

> Don Matesz said:
> Here are some illustrations:
> The Maori living mostly on seafood, vegetables, and fruits had only 1 in
> 2000 teeth with decay.  The Eskimo had only 2 in 2000 teeth with decay.  The
> Masai using milk, blood, meat had 8 in 2000 teeth with decay.  The Gaelics,
> who included oats in their diet with fish, had 14 decayed teeth out of 2000
> teeth.  The Alpine Swiss who included rye bread, potatoes, dairy, and little
> meat had 46 decayed teeth out of 2000.  The Kikuyu who ate mostly corn,
> beans, bananas, sweet potatoes, millet with very small amounts of animal
> foods had 110 decayed teeth out of 2000 teeth.  For comparison modern
> Americans show greater than 180 decayed teeth per 2000 teeth.

On page 27 Price writes, describing the Alpine Swiss, "On average
it was necessary to examine three persons to find one defective
deciduous or permannent tooth."  Assuming 32 teeth per person,
that'a tooth decay rate of 1 per 96 teeth, which is just less
than 20 per 2,00, by my calculations.

> Also, on page 201 Price quotes Pickerill regarding the dental decay
> incidence among the primitive Maori, "This is lower even than the Esquimaux,
> and shows the Maori to have been the most immune race to caries, for which
> statistics are available."

Yes, and yet the Maori clearly eat more vegetable and fruit food
than the "Esquimaux."  Lots of seafood, but lots of fruit and
other vegetation as well.

> Don said:
> "A marked variation of the incidence of irregularities was found in the
> different tribes.  This variation could be directly associated with the
> nutrition rather than the tribal pattern.  The lowest percentage of
> irregularity [in Africa] occurred in the tribes living very largely on dairy
> products and marine life.  For example, among the Masai living on milk,
> blood and meat only 3.4% had irregularities.  Among the Kikuyu and Wakamba,
> 18.2% and 18.9% respectively had irregularities.  These people were largely
> agriculturalistis living primarily on vegetable foods. "
>
> This was the quote that led me to catalog all the relative rates of decay
> and correlate them to dietary habits (animal:plant subsistence) among the
> tribes.  This quote is not specifically about tooth decay but the data for
> tooth decay gives the same impression as I noted above.  There isn't in
> Price's book any one place where the correlation is done for you, I had to
> do it myself.

Thank you.  I appreciate your sharing the results of your work.

> Btw:  There is a chart on page 209 of Nutrition & Evolution by Crawford &
> Marsh which confirms my statements.  The chart does not provide diet details
> but looking at the chart, if you know what these people eat, you will see
> clearly that the rate of dental decay went up with increasing reliance on
> vegetable foods and a decreasing reliance on animal foods.

I don't have that book, but maybe I can get it.  It sounds
interesting.

Todd Moody
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