[notshift]

The problem and solution has been known for almost a century now; check out the book 'Nutrition and Physical Degeneration' by Weston Price. 'The Dental Diet' is also solid reading.

I'm still working through the book, but the tl;dr is that it mostly just comes down to nutritional deficiency. People in the past ate pretty much strictly nutrient-dense foods, people today eat a lot of junk food, empty carbs, and generally foods that just aren't nutrient dense compared to what our ancestors ate (mostly vegetables and meats).

[ch4s3]

People for the last 10k years in agrarian societies mostly ate cereal grains, with a few exceptions like Mesoamerica where they ate beans, squash, and a cereal grain. Hunter gatherers eat a stunning variety of diets and archeology suggests this has always been true. In polar regions people subsist primarily on meat and animal fat, in other places primarily shellfish and small fish.

[fersho311]

Can’t you make up for nutrition dense foods with supplements?

[notshift]

We're still discovering new plant molecules and the effects they have on us all the time. Supplements are never going to be able to completely make up for a diet lacking in real whole plant food & animal meat.

With respect to the question about underdeveloped jaws, that development takes place primarily during your childhood, so if you didn't have optimal nutrition at that stage you won't be able to fix that retroactively.

[Terry_Roll]

Plants picked in darkness have higher levels of melatonin (sleep hormone) in them than plants picked in daylight according to one study.

[ch4s3]

Do you have a citation for that? Google scholar isn't turning anything up for me, and I'm interested.

[lionsdan]

Maybe this? "Melatonin synthesis in rice seedlings in vivo is enhanced at high temperatures and under dark conditions due to increased serotonin N-acetyltransferase and N-acetylserotonin methyltransferase activities"

https://doi.org/10.1111/jpi.12111

[ch4s3]

"The opposite effect occurred during the night, in which the positive effect of darkness on melatonin synthesis was counteracted by the negative effect of a low temperature."

Seems suspect.