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Re:The forgotten joy of soap by ASalazarMX on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @12:19PM (#20393392)
Oh, I also stopped brushing my teeth, I just wash them with water. The first month I had halitosis, but it gradually went away. I'm also more productive than ever because my coworkers have started to send me emails instead of having meetings!
Re:The forgotten joy of soap by Pimpus on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @12:45PM (#20393732)
We are descended from at least 7000 generations of man, and 99.9% of these ancestors had never even heard of toothpaste.
Re:The forgotten joy of soap by crooked-v on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @01:44PM (#20394541)
...and simple dental work dates back to before recorded history, suggesting that cavities have always been a problem, even if they were probably much rarer before the mass use of refined sugar.
Re:The forgotten joy of soap by Frondo on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @02:18PM (#20394961)
Cavities are also found in other mammals; they're not even just a human problem. Something like 5% of dogs get cavities. If you have an older dog and get their teeth cleaned, some might need to be pulled.

I even saw something about cavities in dolphins... and, if I remember right, the thing about humans not getting cavities before the advent of the modern diet stems from a dentist who had some unorthodox theories about dental care that were unsupported by systematic research.

Oh, it's the Weston Price foundation people who make that claim...

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Weston_A._Price_Foundation

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/sbm-weston-prices-appalling...

Re:The forgotten joy of soap by oska on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @04:08PM (#20396048)
Dogs are a bad example to use to support your argument as they are domesticated animals who are fed processed dog food.
Re:The forgotten joy of soap by robin_reala on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @01:08PM (#20394085)
…or refined sugar, or living past 40.
Re:The forgotten joy of soap by pessimizer on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @01:50PM (#20394625)
Plenty of people lived past 40, people always include infant mortality in life expectancy statistics and it skews people's image of how long people who became adults lived.
Re:The forgotten joy of soap by ben_w on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @01:36PM (#20394440)
Relatedly, I’ve had six teeth removed because my mouth is too small.

For me they made an excellent necklace (and an amusing way to disturb my sister), but in bygone generations they with the emergency backup replacement teeth because so many of your teeth fell out.

Re:The forgotten joy of soap by hombre_fatal on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @01:01PM (#20393971)
How were their teeth at 40, if they even lived that long?
Re:The forgotten joy of soap by pessimizer on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @01:43PM (#20394533)
Instead of just assuming, you can see that a lot of fossil teeth tend to look shockingly good.

How are anybody's teeth at 40 if they haven't visited a dentist? Brushing is a cause of receding gums, gum infection, tooth loss, and deep pockets around the gums. Modern sticky flours and sugars also do a number on your teeth, giving bacteria a wonderful place to live.

That being said, if you don't brush your teeth, food will find places in your mouth to sit and rot. Brush your teeth for everyone around you, not for your teeth.

Re:The forgotten joy of soap by X6S1x6Okd1st on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @02:10PM (#20394870)
We are descended from at least 100000 generations of sapiens and 99.9% of these ancestors had never even heard of cooking.