Recently I attended a dental meet where the talk was about airway management.  After talking with the speaker he shared the above slide with me.  Take a good look at it.  It is a modern skull looking at the upper arch from below.  Notice the dotted line?  That is where your teeth are supposed to be.  If you examine any number of Paleolithic skulls or modern humans eating a species appropriate diet, this is where the teeth will be positioned.  A wide arch allows for a flat maxillae and room for all 32 teeth to assume their normal position.

Now look at where the teeth actually are placed.  This is what we see in modern populations today.  The narrowing of the face, an arched maxillae, and a narrower palate that will not have room for all your teeth.  A smaller nasal vault that makes nasal breathing more difficult. Without question this is the root of our dental problems today.  A narrow palate with overlapped teeth will lead to malocclusions and breathing issues.  This is one of the reasons mouth breathing is so common.  Without enough room for all the teeth leads to plaque accumulation and thus periodontal disease as well as decay.

Why is this occurring?  The evidence is multi factorial and not completely clear but it does seem to point to environmental causes.  A Western diet is high in carbohydrates, both sugars and starches. Very often processed and soft.  Soft foods do not stimulate chewing the way harder foods do.  Lack of breastfeeding is another.  Modern hunter-gather societies breastfeed for three years or more.  Kevin Boyd’s study of this provides insight and is very persuasive.

In the 1920’s and 30’s noted dentist Weston Price traveled the world documenting cultures transitioning from traditional to Western diets.  These photographs are on page 109 of his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.  They are Polynesian natives.  The child on the bottom left lives in a house that has adapted a Western diet while the one on the right does not.  What do you want your child’s teeth to look like?

You can think of growth and development as a series of gates opening or closing.  When we are born the growth gate is open and we grow at a slow and steady rate.  When we hit puberty it opens wider and children shoot up to adult height.  Once it closes no matter how good your diet and environment you are done growing.  The best example of this I have seen is Korea.  North and South Korea have basically the same genetic makeup.  Separated by politics, not genetics for the last 70 or so years.  Yet the average South Korean is about 3 inches taller than the average North Korean.  The difference is the diet.  South Korea is awash in good food.  North Korea is starving.  If the countries were merged and everyone in the north could have the same availability to foodstuffs while the children would on average be taller than their parents, the adults would not grow anymore because that gate closes at the end of puberty.

For you jaws it basically works the same way.  They are formed in utero, grow thru childhood and assume an adult size with loss of all deciduous teeth by about age 12.  Continued growth will allow ample room for the wisdom teeth to erupt in the late teens.

While most dentists learn this, as I have stated, a major flaw in dental education is that evolutionary biology is neither taught nor a requirement for admission.  Thus, dentists are trained it how to correct these problems, not how to prevent them.  Just as in my Korean example once that gate closes growth is done and all that is left is treatment.

So what can we do to prevent these problems?  Unfortunately it will take a paradigm shift in thinking and I do not believe one is coming.  For yourself and your children I would suggest eating what I term a species appropriate diet based on what humans evolved eating.  This includes fresh organic grass fed meats, lots of seafood including sea vegetables, green leafy vegetables, and fruit in season.  In addition pay attention and respect the circadian cycle.  Sleep when it is dark, be outside in the daylight.