Wisdom teeth extraction is a common intervention due to the disorders it can cause, affecting even the closest teeth.
We are talking about four molars located in the back of the mouth that are called “wisdom teeth” because they usually erupt around the age of 20, when we are supposed to enjoy greater judgment. But often they do not have enough room to come out, they rotate in the bone and impact against the roots of the other teeth, causing a lot of pain and serious oral infections. Before the invention of antibiotics, these infections could be fatal .
So what did our ancestors do when even modern surgery didn’t exist? Are we facing a blatant case of bad design that has caused pain and death for millennia? Not really. Our ancestors hardly had any problems with these teeth compared to us.
It is enough to analyze ancient skulls and compare them with contemporary ones to notice that the disposition of the teeth, in the past, was not like it is now, and that the current problem of wisdom teeth does not respond to a bad evolutionary design, but to a mismatch of the same: that is to say, that our habits of life have affected the design .
For that reason, we will discover that most hunter-gatherers had enviable dental health. Dentistry and orthodontics weren’t even particularly necessary in the Middle Ages.
If the skulls of the last centuries are analyzed, we will find, in addition to cavities and infections, teeth crowded into the jaw, with impacted teeth. The appearance is very different from “the skulls of pre-industrial farmers, who are also full of cavities and painful-looking abscesses, but less than 5 percent have impacted wisdom teeth,” explains Daniel E. Lieberman , one of the most reputable researchers in human evolution, in his book The History of the Human Body .
If before there were hardly any problems when the wisdom teeth came out, it is because the diet was different. New techniques in food preparation allow us to eat softer, but before it was common to chew harder food, which required greater mechanical stress . This allowed the jaw and teeth to develop and grow properly.
In the Middle Ages, for example, it was common to eat leathery meat that you forced to chew over and over again. In ancient times, in fact, soft foods were a rarity , and processed foods did not exist.
As Lieberman reveals, “Just as the limbs and spine do not grow strong enough if the bones are not stressed enough during walking, running, and other activities, the jaws do not grow enough to accommodate all the teeth. , and these will not fit as they should if we do not subject them to sufficient stress when chewing food ”.
That is why it is not strange to find that dentists use mechanisms to straighten and align the teeth of their patients with the assistance of orthodontic appliances, which apply constant pressure .
Today it is common to eat purees or smoothies, the kitchens are also equipped with mixers and grinders. Even as children we eat baby food. Everything is crushed, ground, boiled or softened in some way . The modern diet, in short, is the main responsible for our ailments with wisdom teeth: “The forces that we apply to the teeth, gums and jaws when chewing activate bone cells of the dental socket that move the tooth towards the correct position ”.
Another side effect of our new diet, which does not force us to chew hard and tighten the muscles in our jaws and faces, is that faces have become, on average, 5 to 10 percent smaller in recent years. thousands of years.
