The Perfect Teeth of Prehistoric Humans

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The inviter must be a resident, but not necessarily the owner. Hi Raphi, When we were writing the first edition of our book, it was commonly accepted that the Delta-6 Desaturase D-6 D enzyme was a very sluggish enzyme. Each protein molecule is composed of amino acids , which are characterized by inclusion of nitrogen and sometimes sulphur these components are responsible for the distinctive smell of burning protein, such as the keratin in hair. You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind. Unfortunately, our editorial approach may not be able to accommodate all contributions. For nutrition in plants, see Plant nutrition.

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The Truth About Hormones in Milk

This is the exact opposite result of the hypothesis that milk consumption causes cancer in general and, in the context of the mentioned article, that this process is driven primarily by IGF In the end our primary concern is to know whether certain foods increase the risk of cancer — and not whether certain components of our food does so in isolation or in a petri dish.

Before describing what we actually know about the connection between milk and cancer, we have to first turn our eyes to the last group of milk hormones: A lot of the milk that we drink comes from pregnant cows and as with humans, this means that the levels of circulating estrogens are higher than normal.

Since that which happens in the blood is usually mirrored in the milk — in cows as in humans — the milk of cows pregnant in the third trimester contains as much as twenty times as much estrogen found in milk from non-pregnant cows. A new study in mice [16] tested whether the amount of estrogens found in regular dairy milk from pregnant cows had any effect on the circulating levels of estrogens and the genitals of the mice. After that, the mice were given times as much estrogen as they had found in the milk samples with the highest amount of estrogen.

Only when the amount of estrogen reached times the amount found in milk, it became possible to detect effects on the blood and genitals. This observation is really no mystery: Everything that we absorb across the gastrointestinal membrane is transported directly to the liver through the portal vein system before it enters the general circulation.

That the liver is so effective at metabolizing steroid hormones is also the primary reason that bodybuilders usually have to inject steroids instead of ingesting them. If they do ingest them it is because the steroids have been chemically modified to be able to resist the passage through the intestines and liver, which is also the reason why ingestible steroids can have a toxic effect on the liver [18].

And that is really the real question we want answered — not whether certain hormones could theoretically raise our risk of cancer. If there was any strong evidence that milk raised the risk of cancer in general, it would be listed at the top of every article on the internet trying to persuade you or scare from drinking milk. You would see meta analyses of studies on milk that showed a clear connection between milk and cancer. Circumstantial evidence is ok to base our beliefs in when we have no other alternative.

But we do have alternatives. Figuring out of there is a connection between a specific food and cancer is much harder than many people assume. Even if we observe an association, it is not safe to assume that the one thing causes the other — it might as well be the other way around this is called reverse causality — which probably explains why artificially sweetened beverages and obesity are correlated [19] or it could be something else entirely that causes both the exposure and the outcome this is called a confounder.

Observe that an exposure and an outcome that seems connected, does not mean that one thing caused the other. When it comes to research into what raises the risk of cancer, we usually have nothing else than observations like these to go on.

We cannot make longitudinal controlled studies because it would be utterly unethical to try to actively provoke cancer in a group of people and if we did and saw even a small rise in cancer incidence, we would have to end the study immediately.

So how can we know whether something causes cancer or not? In Sir Austin Bradford Hill developed a set of criteria [20] that needs to be fulfilled for a causality between an assumed cause and effect to be established.

The Bradford Hill-criteria in summary looks like this:. A good example of an association that fulfills the Bradford Hill-criteria is smoking and lung cancer. The observed period of time between first exposure and the appearance of diagnosable cancer is congruent with what we would expect.

There is a clear dose-response relationship more cigarettes lead to higher risk and there is a good explanation to what we observe, since cigarette smoke contains a long range of strong mutagens that is carcinogenic in both animal and cell studies. To the best of my knowledge there is not a single food that fulfills the Bradford Hill-criteria for causality. To be able to claim that milk increases the risk of cancer, it would take among other things that milk consumption was consistently correlated with a marked increased risk of cancer and that this effect was dose dependent.

Different studies point in different directions and with some types of cancers it seems like it is protecting against that specific type of cancer but seems to promote other types of cancer.

At least that is the focal point of the articles that through blatantly selective presentation of the literature reveals themselves as anti-milk ideologues.

Maybe the observed correlations are causal. Maybe milk plays a small part in both protecting against some cancers, and promoting others. But it is factually wrong to hardheadedly claim that milk causes cancer. The criteria to claim causality simply are not there. A current systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies on milk consumption and mortality showed, that milk neither lowers or raises the overall risk of death neither before time or by cardiovascular disease or cancer [25].

So milk in all likelihood is not relevant to worry about when it comes to cancer in humans. And that is perfectly fine because we have other things to worry about — such as smoking, alcohol and obesity — if we really are interested in lowering our risk of getting cancer. First of all, it is inflamed because there exists a plethora of truly horrifying untruths n articles, magazines and books.

These untruths about milk, hormones and cancer is convincing enough to fool even reasonable and rational people. I was myself once fooled by them. Therefore I would never dream of judging others for believing the same untruths nor for sharing them.

Because if it was indeed true that milk was chock-full of hormones that gave us cancer it would be amoral to not shout this information from the rooftops and demand that health professionals took action. It is perfectly fine to think that the production of milk is unethical or that the people responsible for the production of milk or the dairy lobbyists are exaggerating the health benefits of milk consumption.

It is also perfectly fine to question the necessity of milk consumption and whether milk consumption is bad for the environment. As long as you remember to separate the different issues, because none of these attitudes changes what science tells us about milk, hormones or cancer.

Keep up the good work! You missed the most important and dangerous hormone, estrogen. Certain studies have shown a clear increase in estrogen in males after consuming milk. I especially like the last paragraphs in your usual aplomb. What a relaxed and still utmost precise piece of work! Have you done an article on Calcium or Vitamin E? Especially the latter puzzles me in its glaring gap between ofiicial ingestions recommendations and actual ingestions: We are all massively VitaminE-deficient if we dont eat lots of vegetable O6 oils — so is there something wrong with the recommendations, or with our nutrition or both?

At least by some studies. And it makes sense — calcium without K2 and D vitamin both are fat-soluble thus missing in low-fat milk does not get where it is supposed to get…. What about pasteurization and homogenization and their impact on milk quality?

Conditions that favor acidic saliva include poor dental hygiene, illness and medications, chronic or acutely stressful personal situations, and aging. In a normal, healthy mouth, the saliva that bathes the teeth is released from salivary glands by typical mouth movements and by chewing action. This saliva is non-acidic or slightly alkaline. Periodic excursions of saliva into the acidic range are normally returned to alkalinity by normal saliva flow within a short period.

There seem to be no strong opinions about the influence of diet on dental health other than that the diet should include herbs, vegetables, and, fruits to create an alkaline environment in the body and presumably in the saliva. There seems to be no concern about dietary carbohydrate intake except for a few low-carbohydrate advocates who see other benefits of low-carbohydrate dieting.

Any dental problem from consumption of sugars and starches is considered to be due to topical fermentation of residues left in the mouth after eating.

The position of modern dentistry is that dental caries are caused by specific harmful bacteria in numbers that exceed the numbers of friendly protective bacteria.

Growth of harmful bacteria is stimulated by acidic mouth and by sugar and starches if they are permitted to ferment in the mouth. Harmful bacteria produce their own acid environment in the mouth and are the cause of various dental diseases.

With regard to the study of why prehistoric humans had perfect teeth, the chapter entitled Plaque 6 is the most rewarding. It tells of the discovery in of a film that covers the teeth and surfaces in the mouth. This film, a complex organization of many kinds of bacteria, protein strands, and a variety of other substances, fluids, and cells, was named dental plaque.

By , dental plaque became associated with the harmful bacteria that caused caries. The visible sign of plaque was a hard white deposit on teeth along the gum line made by a film infected with harmful bacteria.

It was ultimately decided that plaque was the cause of caries; thus, began a war on plaque that exists to this day. Patients were instructed to brush vigorously daily to prevent plaque buildup and to have the teeth cleaned at least every six months to scrape away any plaque buildup under the gum line.

This attack on plaque damaged the biofilm and unknowingly created oral environments that promoted dental disease. During the s, dental research began to consider that if dental plaque infected with pathogenic bacteria caused dental disease, perhaps a healthy, non-infected plaque might protect against disease.

Throughout the decades, microbiologists had studied the thousands of microorganisms that inhabited plaque and found that the majority, by far, were beneficial organisms that protected against dental disease.

In this period, the concept of a healthy, protective oral biofilm was born. Concurrently and independently, research by biochemists into the causes and treatment of dental diseases was motivated by the fact that in modern society periodontal diseases are among the most prevalent of human diseases.

In 7 , an investigation of inflammatory processes found that mucosal epithelial cells provide a first line of defense against bacterial invasion and infection.

It is important to note here that, although oral biofilms are specific to periodontal diseases, it appears that all mucous membranes throughout the body harbor a number of antimicrobial factors that form protective barriers or films. The recognition of the protective role of the oral biofilm in dental health brings the study of the teeth of prehistoric humans to a relatively unexplored section of nutritional biochemistry, namely, the metabolism of essential fatty acids EFAs and their end-product eicosanoids and docosanoids and, carbons respectively 8.

The EFAs consist of two families, the omega-6 family and the omega-3 family. The omega-6 family has its first double bond between carbons six and seven from the terminal carbon of the carbon chain.

The omega-3 family has it first double bond between carbons three and four. These are termed essential fatty acids because the human body is incapable of biosynthesizing them. The total daily consumption of EFAs varies widely worldwide. However, the total daily consumption is of lesser importance than the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 in the diet.

The ideal ratio is considered to be about 1: A ratio greater than about 4: The ratio in the average American diet is between Although the metabolism of the essential fatty acids and their eicosanoid end products have been of little general interest in the nutrition community, certain lipid mediators from the eicosanoid family, notably the prostaglandins, have been the subject of intensive investigation for many decades.

In , the Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine was granted to Sune Bergstrom, Sir John Vane, and Bengt Samuelson of the Karolinska Institute for elucidation of the very complex structures of the prostaglandins so named because they were first found in prostate tissue. During the past few decades, study of the very complex structures, functions, actions, and interrelationships among lipid mediators in the numerous subgroups of eicosanoid and docosanoid biochemicals has progressed actively with little notice from nutritional science.

With this research, a new field of biochemical science labeled lipidomics has emerged — virtually unnoticed. From the EFAs of nutritional science, we turn to the EFAs of lipodomics for the final contribution to our study of why prehistoric humans had such good dental health.

Lipidomics explains the very complex biochemistry and functions of EFAs and their eicosanoids-docosanoids system. They also maintain physiological stability by controlling a large number of body functions. Some examples are regulation of blood pressure, gastric mucosal secretion, and gestation and parturition in pregnancy.

The eicosanoid control system governs the biochemistry by which health or disease is determined. Lipid mediator imbalance caused by dietary excesses of omega-6 EFAs is involved in the development of essentially all chronic inflammatory diseases. Lipidomics tells us that prehistoric humans evolved with this very elaborate control system that constantly monitored the body for any sign of anything abnormal. This was a self-healing system that was constantly working on maintenance and repair.

It was responsible for protecting not only the health of his mouth and teeth but also his whole body. This splendid self-healing system, like prehistoric man himself, was the product of the restricted-carbohydrate and bountiful omega-3 EFAs nutrition of the hunter-gather life. Lipidomics discovered the marvelous self-healing system with which man evolved from research on chronic inflammatory diseases.

Lipidomic study of inflammatory processes revealed countless very complex and never-before-known biochemicals synthesized from EFAs that eventually could only be explained by the prehistoric self-healing system.

The degeneration of the remarkable prehistoric self-healing system apparently occurred with the change from hunter-gatherer nutrition to that of plant-based agriculture exemplified by the early Egyptian civilization. The self-healing system is generally unrecognized today because it does not function in people who have flawed nutrition. With proper and dedicated nutritional treatment, lipidomics is proving that the system can be revitalized.

Charles Serhan, who began his postdoctoral career with Dr. Samuelson prior to the Nobel award, has been the principal investigator during the long journey through very complex lipid biochemistry to final acceptance of the new science of lipidomics, a branch of the larger discipline of metabolomics. In , Serhan published a seminal paper discussing a decade of progress in eicosanoid research and announcing discovery of lipid mediators of endogenous anti-inflammation and resolution 9.

Once thought to be merely a passive process, resolution healing of inflammation was shown by the work of Serhan and colleagues to be an active biochemical process that does not occur automatically but must be initiated in order to proceed.

They were new pro-resolving lipid mediators. The biochemical mechanisms for prevention and treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases are extremely complex and difficult for all but scientists working in the field to comprehend. In simplest terms, inflammation is the result of a dietary imbalance of EFAs and their lipid mediators. An existing chronic inflammatory disease will progress unabated until the contributory nutritional failing is remedied. Until that time, the body makes every effort to make repairs with what materials it has available.

It is in this period that scar tissue or the equivalent, depending on the tissue involved, is formed in an attempt to stop damage. It is not until the body is provided with ample dietary EPA and DHA, the lipid mediators described above, inflammation will begin to diminish and healing will commence. These discoveries are tremendously important because they describe the nutritional need for these essential fatty acids and explain the biochemical processes that end inflammation, initiate healing, protect involved tissues, control pain, and return damaged tissues to homeostasis 8.

Periodontal diseases are chronic inflammatory diseases initiated by bacterial infection of the oral protective film and mucosa of the mouth. Dental disease, as with all inflammatory diseases, is a failure of pathways of resolution to heal the infected biofilm and mucosa and return them to homeostasis. Healing cannot occur if the body does not have available in the diet the lipid mediators described by Serhan.

Anti-inflammatory and proresolving mechanisms are the only successful approach to prevention or elimination of dental diseases. As biochemical science became more acquainted with the emerging science of lipidomics, the obvious similarity between omega-3 essential fatty acids and Activator X became obvious to scientists versed in organic chemistry.

The first part of the statement does not appear to be in accord with a careful reading of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration 1 ; however, that the second part is obviously wrong is explained by organic chemistry. Polyunsaturated fatty acids are notoriously subject to oxidation. An iodometric titration, as employed by Price, is used currently to quantitate oxidized polyunsaturated fatty acids in lipid emulsions It is unfortunate that once erroneous information is disseminated to an accepting public, it is difficult to correct.

Vitamin K 2 is important in calcium metabolism and can help prevent or reverse tissue deposition of calcium, but it is deceptive to credit it with the power of Activator X to heal inflammatory diseases. It is evident that Activator X was actually this small class of EFAs, each designed to respond to a specific manifestation of inflammation.

The perfect teeth of prehistoric humans are illustrative of a miracle of life about which the average person of today is totally unaware, namely our inborn, steady-state, self-healing system. It is not just responsible for maintaining a healthy mouth but also for healing any and all chronic inflammatory diseases that afflict the body. The main reason that self healing is not recognized in modern society is that it seldom seen because it requires optimal nutrition to work.

Prehistoric humans also were not aware of the wonderful self-healing system within themselves, but they benefited from its existence because they had no choice. Their nutrition, like themselves, was prescribed by their environment. The evolutionary diet was the diet that described the optimum nutrition for humans.

The development of perfect prehistoric teeth, however, had its beginning much earlier in life — actually at birth. The quality of dental health in the prehistoric neonate depended, as it does in modern babies, on the kinds of oral microorganisms, protective or harmful, transferred to them. The oral biofilms of prehistoric neonates were formed with a predominance of friendly, protective microorganisms that were representative of the average of the tribe. Finally, perfect prehistoric teeth would not have been achievable without the existence of the anti-inflammatory, pro-resolution, lipid mediator system that constantly monitored and mended occasional insults.

Shortly after completion of this article, the following conclusion appeared in a research abstract in the June 26 issue of the Journal of Dental Research In this randomized controlled trial, aspirin-triggered DHA supplementation significantly improved periodontal outcomes in people with periodontitis, indicating its potential therapeutic efficacy. Maybe you can help convince me, one way or the other!

Many thanks, Raphi, for your kind words and your thoughtful comments. We hope we can answer your concerns. It is a great and valuable resource for nutritional science. As a start, vitamin K1, the most available of the K vitamins, displays no Activator X activity at all. The best dietary sources of vitamin K2 as MK-7 , which does mimic the tooth remineralization effect of Activator X, are fermented foods and hard cheeses.

Some K1 may be converted to K2 in the body, but recent data indicate that K2 must be consumed preformed. He did note that a few of the 14 groups employed fermentation as a preservative, but apparently fermented foods had no place in his judgments about Activator X. We also do not recall that cheeses played a significant role in primitive diets or in the diets he designed for his clinical trials. Butter is the complete milk fat saturated plus unsaturated designed by nature for total support of survival and growth of neonates during their first few months of life.

Plant seed oils have mega-concentrations of omega-6 linoleic acid and no, or insignificant, concentrations of omega-3 DHA. It is critical for people interested in their health to know that omega-3 essential fatty acids are almost exclusively animal fats; to avoid consumption of vegetable oils; and to be aware of the amount of their intake of omega-3 EFAs.

Nevertheless, for the interplay to work, carbohydrates must be restricted, the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio must be balanced, and micronutrients, such as vitamins A, D, and Ks, must be adequate to supply the materials needed for maintenance and repair.

Sorry, but we cannot evaluate that because we have no idea if Masterjohn has any interest in or knowledge of the eicosanoid-docosanoid system mechanisms. Not many docs know this in my experience so I doubt the public will any time soon. Also, this is the problem with WAPF: Nonetheless, I chose it hehe!

When we were writing the first edition of our book, it was commonly accepted that the Delta-6 Desaturase D-6 D enzyme was a very sluggish enzyme. D-6 D is the first step in the metabolic chain of the EFAs. It works on both omega-6 linoleic acid and omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid to remove 2 adjacent hydrogen atoms and replace them with a double bond.

If the D-6 D reaction does not work well, the metabolites produced lower down in the chain will be meager or absent. At the time of our first edition, it was estimated that a person would have to increase their intake of alpha-linolenic acid by fold in order to get adequate EPA and DHA. In the second edition of our book, we therefore recommend classifying EPA and DHA as essential fatty acids 1, pp , You are right that most docs do not know this, but apparently neither do the Paleo-fitness folk.

We thought of K2 primarily as a calcium-tissue blocker. It prevents deposition of calcium in soft tissues, notable in blood vessels and cardiac valves. Thus, we cannot help you with any references you require. Ottoboni A, Ottoboni F. Although I became toothless by age 25 better with no teeth than rotting ones and dental topics hold no interest. Do not worry about the dental part of the post. Instead read from the Lipodomics section through to the end.

This will describe the self-healing system we all have within us. It works for ALL chronic inflammatory diseases. It can only help you.

You are right about flax oil — very high omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid ALA compared to omega-6 linoleic acid LA. Flax seeds and fax oil are exceptions, along with chia seeds, to the proscription against seed oils.

There is a problem, though. It appears as though there is only one omega-3 fatty acid that can counter the inflammatory effect of linoleic acid. That one is EPA. To be on the safe side always take an amount of fish oil or krill if you prefer equal to that of flax oil along with the flax oil. The villainous nature of LA is its carcinogenicity. You are absolutely correct, and it is an extremely important observation. See the response to your last comment. My wife suffered from persistent gum disease over a 5-year period.

She dreaded the dentist and no matter what medicine and treatment they provided, nothing stopped the steady deterioration of her gums. Reluctantly at first because of her media-driven fear of Fat.

Well, lo and behold, her last visit to the dentist, 6 months after the nutritional switch, left her and her dentist dumbstruck! Her gums were totally rejuvenated with only minimal signs of any previous distress. The dentist actually called her staff in to witness the improvement. No one could believe it. My wife explained the dietary shift and they all shook their heads in disbelief. Bless you, Joe, for sharing your story of the wonderful relief from gum disease your wife experienced after changing to a LCHF GF diet.

You will never know how many people you will have helped by telling your story. It is not only dental problems but the whole host of chronic inflammatory diseases including reversal of type-2 diabetes that the body can cope with and repair if given the right nutrition. You will never regret the dietary change, Joe. Healing is not a rapid process. Some chronic conditions may take a matter months or years to mend. So keep heart and enjoy. It can only get better.

One of the first benefits I noticed when I went low carb was that dental cleanings were a breeze, with almost no plaque, which my long time hygienist was quite surprised by considering how much I tended to have before on the SAD diet. So, for the uneducated caveman who read through this whole page and still dont understand AA or DHL etc etc. Switching diets to cut out as many Carbs as possible, Enjoy fatty foods as much as possible, get tablets for A D and K2 vitimins as well as Omega 3, and the body will start to repair years of damage??

When cooking, we tend to use a lot of vegitable oil in our house, I couldnt work out if this is a very bad idea or not. Many thanks, Mark, for the courage to tell us that you do not understand this post. If you do not understand, then there are many others who also do not understand but who are hesitant to admit it or just do not care. It is our job to learn how to explain better. The metabolism of the essential fatty acids and their key to self-healing is a very complex subject.

It is difficult to understand and difficult to explain.

Tina Jones, M.D.