How to eliminate tooth decay the old fashioned way

     Is there a natural way to eliminalte tooth decay? To answer this question we need to go back…back in time.   You may not realize this, but tooth decay was virtually non-existent before 10,000 years. In fact, tooth decay is a relatively modern disease. It is first seen in the human fossil record with the advent of grain consumption and farming. Tooth decay as well as many other diseases used to be called “diseases of civilization” until it became politically incorrect. However, it is a very fitting name and it includes cardio-vascular disease, strokes, heart attacks, many cancers, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, food allergies, and autoimmune diseases such as Lupus, Alzhiemer’s, multiple sclerosis, Type I diabetes, vetiligo, psoriasis,and many others.
     Approximately 10,000 years ago humans began transitioning form living as hunter-gatherers to farming. Agriculture has turned out to be a double edge sword. It allowed humans to develop civilization and technology at the expense of our health. Today at the highest point of human civilization and technological achievement we are sicker than we have ever been before and it is going to get worse! We went form a diet that we evolved to eat for 2 million years, a diet that gave us our large and impressive brain, to a diet that in the short 10,000 years of agriculture and processed foods that is full of foods that are foreign to our metabolism.
      We evolved eating a diet of meat, fish, poultry (and the fat that came along with these animals) and seasonal veggies and fruit. Skeletons of our ancestors showed perfectly straight teeth withvirtually no cavities. These skeletons also showed people with strong robust bones with muscle insertions similar to today’s top athletes. Of the little over 200 remaining pockets of hunter gatherer populations left today none of these people show any signs of tooth decay or any other disease of civilization. 
     Our agricultural diet is full of foods that we are not designed to eat. These foods include grains, legumes, dairy, plant oils and exorbitant levels of fructose found in processed food and unnaturally sweet fruit that are available to us year round. The unnaturally enormous levels of carbohydrates as well as antinutrients and toxins found in these “evolutionarily foreign” foods are making us sicker and sicker. 
     Grains and legumes are the seeds of plants. Since plants have no claws, teeth or legs the only defense against their seeds being eaten is biologic chemical warfare: toxins and antinutrients. Enough of these chemicals survive heating and digestion to wreak havoc on our health. Dairy is also an unnatural food. We are the only mammals on this planet that drink the milk of other mammals into adult hood. Milk makes babies grow and cow babies need to grow FAST! Not only is milk loaded with proteins that are toxic and allergic to humans, it is full of natural (and sometimes unnatural) growth hormones.   Plant oils are loaded with omega 6 fatty acids that are pro-inflammatory and unnatural to our diet. Fruits have been bred to be large and sweet and are now available all year and together with High Fructose Corn Syrup found in everything form ketchup to soda are overloading our liver with fructose and destroying our health and teeth.
        What is natural is and always will be better then man-made.  Recent studies have shown that proper jaw development is linked to what nature intended.  One study showed that the upper jaw of brest fed babies follows an approprieate wide arch development, while bottle fed babies tned to have narrower upper jaws resuting in tooth crowding.  While another study showed that the lower jaw develops properly in childern eating a hunter-gatherer diet, while agrarian childern eating a much mushier diet, suffer form diminished lower jaw development and increased tooth crowding.  No wonder most children in the USA need braces!

     So if you want to stop cavities and cure yourself form “diseases of civilization”, begin eating and moving like our Paleolithic ancestors did. Dr. Shvartsman takes a Holistic approach to dentistry and follows a Paleo Diet for health and tooth decay prevention. For further reading on this subject I encourage you to read: The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sission, The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf and The Paleo Answer by Lauren Cordain. I wish you all great health!