{"id":1328,"date":"2023-07-13T03:56:57","date_gmt":"2023-07-13T03:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/dental-care-blog\/did-ancient-americans-have-dental-problems\/"},"modified":"2023-07-13T03:56:57","modified_gmt":"2023-07-13T03:56:57","slug":"did-ancient-americans-have-dental-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/dental-care-blog\/did-ancient-americans-have-dental-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Ancient Americans Have Dental Problems?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1329\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2023\/07\/native-american-dental-health-2023_543.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"543\" height=\"543\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2023\/07\/native-american-dental-health-2023_543.jpg 543w, https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2023\/07\/native-american-dental-health-2023_543-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2023\/07\/native-american-dental-health-2023_543-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 543px) 100vw, 543px\" \/><br \/>\n<b>WE TEND TO IMAGINE<\/b> that people from earlier eras must\u2019ve had worse teeth than we do because they didn\u2019t have things like modern dentistry, orthodontics, and root canal treatment, but what dental problems were they dealing with and how did they protect their teeth?<\/p>\n<h3>Gum Disease Through History<\/h3>\n<p>We have evidence that ancient Native Americans \u2014 specifically the Manitou cliff dwellers near modern Colorado Springs \u2014 sometimes got tooth decay and gum disease, because we can see the damage to their teeth and jaws in remains found in the area.<\/p>\n<p>The ancient cliff dwellers ate a diet of corn (maize), beans, squash, fish, and fresh fruits and nuts. Such a high-fiber diet is great for dental health because harmful oral bacteria needs sugar and starch to multiply but high-fiber foods help keep our teeth clean as we eat them.<\/p>\n<h3>Dental Hygiene Before Modern Toothbrushes<\/h3>\n<p>Aside from their diet being a mostly healthy one for their teeth and gums, they used chewsticks to clean their teeth and chewed fresh herbs like mint, cucacua, and sage to keep their breath fresh. Chewsticks were twigs with a pointy end that could act as a toothpick and the other end was frayed and worked kind of like a toothbrush.<\/p>\n<h6>Top image used under <span style=\"color: #2a7abd;\"><a style=\"color: #2a7abd;\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/share-your-work\/public-domain\/cc0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CC0 Public Domain license<\/a><\/span>. Image cropped and modified from original.<\/h6>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #d9d9d9;\">The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.<\/span><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><b>WE TEND TO IMAGINE<\/p>\n<p> that people from earlier eras must\u2019ve had worse teeth than we do because&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1329,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[176,179,184,180,182,181],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[412,1067,978,1068,1069,101,498,254,1070,1071,452,205,256,37,1072,47,240,500,46,457],"class_list":["post-1328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-dental-posts","category-endo","category-general-dental","category-ortho","category-pediatric","category-176","category-179","category-184","category-180","category-182","category-181","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1328"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}