Iceman Had Bad Teeth 130
sciencehabit writes "Europe's best-known mummy wasn't just a medical mess; he also had terrible teeth, according to a new study. Ötzi, a Stone Age man who died atop a glacier about 5300 years ago, suffered from severe gum disease and cavities. When Ötzi was discovered atop a glacier on the Austro-Italian border, his frozen corpse was intensively studied. But no one took a close look at his teeth until now. Using 3D computer tomography (a CAT scan), the hunter's mouth could be examined for clues as to the life he led. A fall or other accident killed one of his front teeth, still discolored millennia later. And he may have had a small stone, gone unnoticed in his whole-grain bread or gruel, to thank for a broken molar. That gruel may be the culprit behind Ötzi's cavities and gum disease, too. The uptick in starches, the researchers suggest, could explain the increasing frequency of cavities in teeth from the time—a problem that's been with us ever since."
Re:Paleo diet (Score:4, Insightful)
Grain. Hardly paleo.
Re:That's the inconvenient truth of "the simple li (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, things can always be a little too simple, but that doesn't mean we should make them as complicated/not-simple/technological as possible. It's perfectly possible to have good health without being inundated with technology for our entire lives.
No actually it isn't. You just don't realise that: spoken language, currency, written language, specialized education, calendars, etc. are technology. Not to mention: stethoscopes, toothbrushes, anatomy, cell theory, germ theory, etc.
Good luck having a modern lifespan without a nontrivial subset of technology.
Re:That's the inconvenient truth of "the simple li (Score:5, Insightful)
You have a nice hypothesis. Now go for the hard data: look for countries with better life indexes and higher life expectancy than USA (yes, there's quite a lot of them). Now note down which one of them has NOT socialized medicine.
HINT: no one of them, not a single one.