GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN—Cosmos Magazine reports that a team of researchers led by dentist Carolina Bertilsson of the University of Gothenburg analyzed the teeth of more than 170 individuals who had been buried in a Christian cemetery between the tenth and twelfth centuries in southern Sweden’s village of Varnhem. The study determined that about half of the people did not experience tooth decay, and about four percent of the other half of the population with tooth decay had an active dental infection. About one quarter of all of the adult teeth had been lost. “Dental caries is a disease that is strongly linked to diet, so it can give clues regarding dietary habits and contents,” Bertilsson said. These people are likely to have consumed a diet of beef, pork, mutton, fish, dairy, bread, porridge, cabbage, turnips, leeks, mushrooms, hazelnuts, beer, and sometimes milk and mead. Tooth picking is likely to have been the only oral hygiene measure practiced, the researchers explained, noting that teeth with abrasion marks from tooth picking did not show signs of decay. Additionally, none of the 38 children under the age of 12 had any signs of decay in their teeth. Read the original scholarly article about this research in PLOS ONE. To read about the oldest evidence for filling dental cavities, go to "Not So Pearly Whites."
