[sabujp]

My grandmother chewed betel leaves with a small amount of tobacco, betel nuts, lime (calcium hydroxide aka chuna/chun), multiple times a day all her life. Her other diet consisted of tea just as many times per day, and for actual food a diet of rice, fish, and vegetables. For the majority of her life I don't think she actually had access to fluoridated toothpaste and probably used neem twigs or even charcoal at times to brush her teeth. Her teeth were gross, tinted red and brown. She lived to 93 and I never heard of her ever getting cavities or fillings or going to a dentist. In the place where she lived the only reason you go to a "dentist" is to have teeth removed.

Basically what I'm saying is that diet and genetics are a huge factor.

[gumby]

Interesting. My Indian grandparents and g-grandparents appeared to have most or all of their teeth, and were a long lived bunch (all but one into their 90s). I can’t say conclusively all but I never noticed any gaps or problems, which is the kind of thing kids notice. The g-grandparents would all have been born in the 19th century.

My Australian grandmother had all her teeth pulled out when she was 12 and wore artificial teeth for the next 75 years.

[ponzao]

Do you happen to have any idea if your g- and grandparents on the Indian side eat and or ate a lot of refined carbs like naan or white rice? Refined carbs being often called a modern thing and the cause of metabolic disease, but so far I've not really found that to be true.

[kgc]

Why pulled?

[daverol]

Many accounts sat the in the UK in the early 20th century dentistry was still so expensive that some people chose to have all their teeth pulled to spare themselves a lifetime of pain. Having all your teeth removed was considered the perfect gift for a 21st birthday or a newly married bride. My mother-in-law had her teeth out under this practice.

The foundation of the NHS in 1948 made dental care affordable for all and in the first nine months four million cavities were filled and queues formed outside surgeries.

see: https://bda.org/museum/exhibitions-and-events/nhs70-celebrat...

[gumby]

This would have been the early 1920s so the availability of dentistry out in the countryside would have been minimal. Instead of having a bunch of rotting and broken teeth (and the concomitant pain) it would h have been simpler to just get them all out.

The replacement plates can’t have been that comfortable either.

[cricalix]

My English grandmother was the same, though I think it was closer to her 30s. My understanding is her dental hygiene was not the best (she grew up in WW2), and it was just “easier” to remove all of the teeth and use dentures.

[riku_iki]

So, she still had all her teeth at 93?

It is obvious that if she didn't visit dentists regularly, no one detected cavities, and teeth are just need to be pulled because of abscess from bacteria at the end.

[sabujp]

yes she had all her teeth when she died

[riku_iki]

Oh, this is super interesting.

[lotsofpulp]

My grandma had all her teeth at 97 or so when she passed, and never saw a dentist, and I saw her use this tobacco toothpaste 3x per day for 25 years, until she died.

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/stfactsheetcombined10-23-02-...

I assume she had a combination of good genes, frequent teeth cleaning right after meals, low sugar intake, and no soda/alcohol.

I have never had a cavity as of mid 30s, and I only started going to dentist at 23 or so. I don’t eat much, if any, sweets/junk food/soda.

[Rebelgecko]

Just curious, where did the linked image come from?

I'm imagining some sort of encyclopedia of tobacco toothpastes

[lotsofpulp]

I image searched for ipco on DuckDuckGo.