Lisa writes that maybe I should do a form letter and put it on my web page
about this:

>> Send me her name and address and I  will write her an excruciatingly
polite letter, and send her a copy of "A Time to Wean" and ask her to please
explain why bioarcheologists report that it is extremely rare to find ANY
cavities in the deciduous teeth of children from prehistoric times.
 Likewise, why do children in Third World countries manage to nurse for 3-5
years without having their teeth rot??<<


Good idea Lisa.  I will do this and ask Sue Ann Kendall to post it on my web
page.  Maybe I should also do this for the infamous "All the benefits are
gone by ___ age." statements that so many doctors seem to make.  Sigh.  I
still haven't been sent the name and address of the offending dentist, by
the way, and didn't keep the original post.

Cavities in deciduous teeth can be damaging to the permanent teeth, if they
get bad enough.

I give my kids fluoride tablets, because we're on well-water which isn't
fluoridated.

It *is* a good idea to take fluoride when pregnant, because the baby's
crowns of its deciduous teeth are forming during the pregnancy, just as the
crowns of their permanent teeth are forming during the first years of life.

A final note on teeth and diet.  While it is true that in prehistoric
populations hunters and gatherers tend to have few cavities, and the
carbohydrate-dependent farmers tend to have lots of cavities, two other
things must be noted:

1.  Hunters-and-gatherers have few cavities, in part, because they tend to
have a lot of grit in their diets, which wears away the enamel, leaving nice
smooth surfaces that food doesn't stick to.  So it's a trade-off -- lots of
dental wear and few cavities in hunters-and-gatherers, less dental wear but
lots of cavities in carbo-farmers.

2.  Teeth cleaning hygiene also plays a big role here.  In Mali, where all
groups I studied were carbo-farmers (millet, sorghum, rice, corn) you found
lots of cavities in the groups that didn't brush their teeth, and almost no
cavities in the groups that did (they use special sticks from a particular
type of tree -- you buy a 6" stick in the market place, chew the end to make
it brushy, then brush your teeth with it; the trees themselves have special
anti-bacterial chemicals in them, so it's partly that you're brushing the
food debris off your teeth, and partly the chemicals in the stick).  In
Magnambougou, where everyone uses tooth-brushing sticks, most adults have
perfectly white, perfectly straight, cavity-free teeth.  In Dogo, in rural
Mali, where people didn't know about the tooth-brushing sticks, many adults
had huge cavities, running abscesses, and many teeth lost early in adulthood.

If anyone wants to see beautiful teeth in Third World populations, look for
Carol Beckwith's book "Nomads of Niger."  Lots of close up of beautiful,
perfectly straight, white teeth.  And all those folks were breastfed for
many years as children.

Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology and Nutrition
Texas A&M University
Co-editor of "Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives"