Past and Present Oral Microbiomes

 

In these articles scientists have extracted genetic information from 4,000 year old teeth in order to gather more information on how our diets have changed overtime. Researchers at Trinity College Dublin along with archaeologists from the Atlantic Technological University and University of Edinburgh, were able to recover the microbiome in the teeth from a 4,000 year old corpse. As we knew before, historically it was understood that overtime cavities became a more modern problem while back then the decaying of teeth was pretty common with the microbiomes they examined. However, this new study found an excessive amount of S. mutans which is the bacteria that is considered the main cause of cavities. This was interesting because the genome of the historic S. mutan is vastly different from the one found now. Continuing to compare modern and ancient teeth, they also found evidence to support the theory “disappearing microbiomes' ' which hypothesizes that modern microbiomes are less diverse. This poses an issue because it can be detrimental to human health. Overall, seeing the difference in microbiomes they were able to tell how our increase in sugar consumptions has altered our oral microbiome.

Sources:

Link 1: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240327124735.htm

Link 2: https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/4-000-year-old-bronze-age-teeth-chart-the-changes-in-human-diet-over-time