Genetics and Tooth Decay.

Younger Brother

© Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, www.ppnf.org

The younger boy, seen to the left, had extensive tooth decay. Many teeth were missing including two in the front. He insisted on having white bread, jam, highly sweetened coffee and also sweet chocolates. His father told me with deep concern how difficult it was for this boy to get up in the morning and go to work.¹⁸

Older Brother

© Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, www.ppnf.org

[The older brother] had excellent teeth and [younger brother] rampant caries. The older boy, [shown here] with excellent teeth, was still enjoying primitive food of oatmeal and oatcake and sea foods with some limited dairy products.¹⁹ Note the narrow face and [dental] arch of the younger brother.²⁰

Nutrition of Modernized Gaelics

In Stornoway, one could purchase angel food cake, white bread, as snow white as that to be found in any community in the world, many other white-flour products; also, canned marmalades, canned vegetables, sweetened fruit juices, jams, confections of every type filled the store windows and counters.²¹

Immunity to Tooth Decay

On the Isle of Lewis, in a count of one hundred individuals appearing to be between the ages of twenty and forty, twenty-five were already wearing artificial teeth. On the Isle of Harris, 32.4% of teeth had been attacked by tooth decay and on the Isle of Skye, 16.3%, or twenty-three times as many teeth as the isolated Gaelics, had been attacked with dental caries.

Genetics and Tooth Decay

A little girl and her grandfather on the Isle of Skye illustrated the change in the two generations. He was the product of the old régime, and about eighty years of age. He was carrying the harvest from the fields on his back when I stopped him to take his picture. He was typical of the stalwart product raised on the native foods. She had the typical expression of the result of modernization after the parents had adopted the modern foods of commerce, and abandoned the oatcake, oatmeal porridge and sea foods.²²

[The granddaughter] has low immunity to dental caries, contracted nostrils and is a mouth breather. Her grandfather, age 82, has excellent teeth.²³

I have now provided you with two compelling examples of the effect of nutrition on dental health. First, we have the case of the two brothers, one who is immune to cavities and one who is not. The second example is of an older man. One would expect by his age to have a majority of his teeth missing or full of fillings, yet he has healthy, cavity-free teeth. His granddaughter does not have healthy, cavity-free teeth because she does not eat according to the old way.

In both the case of the brothers, and the case of the grandfather and his granddaughter, the difference in their health is not based in their genetics, but in the foods consumed. These observations show obvious cause and effect, yet they defy mainstream medical beliefs. In our modern culture, we are taught to believe that tooth decay and many other diseases are primarily a factor of heredity. I have shown you that this is not always the case. Tens of millions of people go to the dentist and are never told that tooth decay is due to missing vitamins and minerals in their diet.