Race and teeth

[Anglojew]

An interesting difference between races is the characteristics of teeth. For instance, "people (http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/race-and-sex-differences-in-crown-size/) of African ancestry have bigger teeth with thicker enamel, most notable on the crowns. they are often said to have ‘complex, massive’ teeth, where as Europeans have ‘simple, mass reduced’ teeth."

"Mesiodistal and buccolingual crown diameters of all teeth recorded in 72 major human population groups and seven geographic groups were analyzed. The results obtained are fivefold. First, the largest teeth are found among Australians, followed by Melanesians, Micronesians, sub-Saharan Africans, and Native Americans. Philippine Negritos, Jomon/Ainu, and Western Eurasians have small teeth, while East/Southeast Asians and Polynesians are intermediate in overall tooth size. Second, in terms of odontometric shape factors, world extremes are Europeans, aboriginal New World populations, and to a lesser extent, Australians. Third, East/Southeast Asians share similar dental features with sub-Saharan Africans, and fall in the center of the phenetic space occupied by a wide array of samples. Fourth, the patterning of dental variation among major geographic populations is more or less consistent with those obtained from genetic and craniometric data. Fifth, once differences in population size between sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, South/West Asia, Australia, and Far East, and genetic drift are taken into consideration, the pattern of sub-Saharan African distinctiveness becomes more or less comparable to that based on genetic and craniometric data. As such, worldwide patterning of odontometric variation provides an additional avenue in the ongoing investigation of the origin(s) of anatomically modern humans."

One interesting variation is the so-called "Uto-Aztecan” bulge" found in some native Americans;

"is adental polymorphism characterized by an exaggerated dis-tobuccal rotation of the paracone in combination with thepresence of a fossa at the intersection of the distal occlusalridge and distal marginal ridge of upper first premolars.This trait is important because, unlike other dental var-iants, it has been found exclusively in Native Americanpopulations. However, the trait’s temporal and geographicvariation has never been fully documented. The discoveryof a Uto-Aztecan premolar in a prehistoric skeletal seriesfrom northern South America calls into question the pre-sumed linguistic and geographic limits of this trait. Weexamined published and unpublished data for this rarebut highly distinctive trait in samples representing over5,000 Native Americans from North and South America.Our findings in living Southwest Amerindian populations"

A variation of this is the "eagle talon cusp" which is particularly different from the European norm;

http://www.jisppd.com/articles/2007/25/1/images/JIndianSocPedodPrevDent_2007_25_1_52_31993_5.jpg

African's often appear to have very white teeth but that could be a contrast against their skin. Has anyone else noticed any racial differences with teeth?

[Sikeliot]

Some of the Mexicans and Central Americans I know have very unique shaped teeth, it's hard not to notice. Almost shovel shaped.

[American_Hispanist]

welcome back Jewfist.

[larali]

Asians often have very yellow teeth... just an observation!

Probably cultural teeth care differences.

[Virtuous]

My canines are incredibly sharp.

[MarkyMark]

I've noticed my Italian side has big canine teeth, and I also remember someone posting to classify some spanish guy jogging(or bicycling?), and some spanish person said that he has 'Spanish teeth'....So did it say anything about Meds and canine teeth?

[pao-]

Some of the Mexicans and Central Americans I know have very unique shaped teeth, it's hard not to notice. Almost shovel shaped.

Native-American teeth are characteristically known as shovel teeth. You need a bird's eye view or really get in there to notice it, though.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A9ipYvA1R_U/UDr-Ftr1enI/AAAAAAAAACE/xDdo_MkIJsQ/s1600/sinodont+line+up.gif

[Sikeliot]

Native-American teeth are characteristically known as shovel teeth. You need a bird's eye view or really get in there to notice it, though.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A9ipYvA1R_U/UDr-Ftr1enI/AAAAAAAAACE/xDdo_MkIJsQ/s1600/sinodont+line+up.gif

It's noticeable in the front two teeth on the top even if just talking to someone though, no?

[larali]

I have shovel shaped front teeth but supposedly no Native Dna.

I had really fucked up crooked teeth before I got braces. It's because I'm a mongrel. The genes didn't fit like they were supposed to ;)

[amerinese]

I thought I had shovel teeth, but my incisors are actually more like the non-shovel example... a slight indentation, not like an ice cream scoop.

[pao-]

It's noticeable in the front two teeth on the top even if just talking to someone though, no?

Well the "shovel-shape" refers to the inside indentation of the tooth. I'm not sure if what you've noted is a different characteristic of another name or if it relates to it. I can't say I've seen Europeans with my two top teeth, though.

[pinguino]

I have shovel-shape teeth. It maybe a dominant gen

[rashka]

I have shovel shaped front teeth but supposedly no Native Dna.

I had really fucked up crooked teeth before I got braces. It's because I'm a mongrel. The genes didn't fit like they were supposed to ;)

These are shovel-shaped teeth. It is not exclusive to Native people but to anyone of Mongol ancestry.

http://i.imgur.com/ZZDeU.jpg

[Anglojew]

Some of the Mexicans and Central Americans I know have very unique shaped teeth, it's hard not to notice. Almost shovel shaped.

Yes, Asians are known to have Shovel teeth as well.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FnTQNxzjKRM/TVHYC0UKCCI/AAAAAAAAAKc/EiBcRtUqYvg/s400/asian%2Bteeth.jpg

[Anglojew]

welcome back Jewfist.

I'm not Jewfist and I'm not Proudjew. Go ahead and check IP addresses. I don't know why people think they're my other profiles. I have one profile here and that's all.

Yes, I'm back from being banned for posting photos of camp matadors yet someone can threaten to murder me if I ever come to Spain and have no consequences.

[Anglojew]

Asians often have very yellow teeth... just an observation!

Probably cultural teeth care differences.

Yes, it could be diet or brushing habits though?

[Anglojew]

I've noticed my Italian side has big canine teeth, and I also remember someone posting to classify some spanish guy jogging(or bicycling?), and some spanish person said that he has 'Spanish teeth'....So did it say anything about Meds and canine teeth?

Spanish teeth lol.

[Anglojew]

I have shovel shaped front teeth but supposedly no Native Dna.

I had really fucked up crooked teeth before I got braces. It's because I'm a mongrel. The genes didn't fit like they were supposed to ;)

I think mine are slightly shovel shaped but they look pretty normal from the front.

[Anglojew]

These are shovel-shaped teeth. It is not exclusive to Native people but to anyone of Mongol ancestry.

http://i.imgur.com/ZZDeU.jpg

Those teeth are really different. Thanks for posting.

[Graham]

Think I have those shovel-shape teeth thingys.

[Kazimiera]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3473/3747590190_91df1facef.jpg

[Virtuous]

Nah, my incisors aren't shovel shaped. But my canines are larger and sharper than average, I like to point that out :D.

[Kazimiera]

Non-shovel teeth here.

[Anglojew]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3473/3747590190_91df1facef.jpg

They look very similar.

[Virtuous]

I will add something else to my racist line towards Asians.

"Yellow-nosed-chinky-eyed-shovel-toothed motherfuckers".

[Kazimiera]

They look very similar.

In what way? There are three pictures of the shovel-shaped one, and one caucasoid. I think they look distinctly different.

[Atlantic Islander]

Non-shovel teeth here.

Same here.

[Anglojew]

In what way? There are three pictures of the shovel-shaped one, and one caucasoid. I think they look distinctly different.

Oh are all 3 shovel the same or variations? They do look very different from the caucasoid one. Almost like a different species.

[amerinese]

Maybe it's possible to have an intermediate between shovel and non-shovel?

I have a sort of groove on the inside of my incisors, but it doesn't feel as deep or wide as the shovel-tooth images indicate.

[Armand_Duval]

I have an excellent set of teeth.

[Kazimiera]

Oh are all 3 shovel the same or variations? They do look very different from the caucasoid one. Almost like a different species.

The top left is a photo of the shovel shaped one. The top right is the dental impression and what you would be left with if one bit you. And the bottom right looks like a plastic reconstruction. The caucasoid is for comparison.

You are right. They do look like a different species.

[Albion]

The spread of the different types need not necessarily be all down to genetics, it could be in part parallel evolution based on the consistency of the food consumed.
Sub-Saharan Africans, Melanesians and Australian Aborigines may have traditionally eaten tougher foods than say Europeans. Europeans in general have mainly been subsisting on grain-based diets with a few veg and not so much meat for much of their existence (since meat was a luxury in the past). Although things such as bread were tougher in the past than they are now, it might still not have been enough to create an advantage for strong teeth.

East Asians have had a lot of rice in their diet which goes very soft, but the older strains are tougher so I don't really know what the shovel shape has evolved for. It might just be an example of an evolved trait with no clear benefit nor problem.
No idea why Native Americans would have it, although I suspect it's either related to agriculture or was already present in the founding populations. If the hunter-gatherers have it then it'll most likely be the latter, if it's only found in the natives that had agriculture then the former.

[MfA_]

My canines are incredibly sharp.


I've noticed my Italian side has big canine teeth, and I also remember someone posting to classify some spanish guy jogging(or bicycling?), and some spanish person said that he has 'Spanish teeth'....So did it say anything about Meds and canine teeth?

Romulus and Remus, anyone?

:p

[Corvus]

I have Mongolid teeth, ideal for meat chopping, sadly a bit unharmonius looking

[Siberian Cold Breeze]

I have Mongolid teeth, ideal for meat chopping, sadly a bit unharmonius looking

My teeth brother :hug2:
Bucked and crooked and shoveld but I still love my teeth..braces can go hell..

[Harkonnen]

East Asians have had a lot of rice in their diet which goes very soft, but the older strains are tougher so I don't really know what the shovel shape has evolved for. It might just be an example of an evolved trait with no clear benefit nor problem.
No idea why Native Americans would have it, although I suspect it's either related to agriculture or was already present in the founding populations. If the hunter-gatherers have it then it'll most likely be the latter, if it's only found in the natives that had agriculture then the former.

Shovel shaped teeth is the stronger type of teeth. It is the tooth of a hunter gatherer. In fact paleolithic Europeans had shovel shape tooth.

[chocolatcandy]

I've seen a lot of African Americans with really good teeth!

[larali]

These are shovel-shaped teeth. It is not exclusive to Native people but to anyone of Mongol ancestry.

http://i.imgur.com/ZZDeU.jpg

Oh, mine do not look like that.

[Illancha]

Hmmm...

[Albion]

Shovel shaped teeth is the stronger type of teeth. It is the tooth of a hunter gatherer. In fact paleolithic Europeans had shovel shape tooth.

I wonder why East Asians have retained it and Europeans haven't then? :confused:

[Gauthier]

I have an excellent set of teeth.

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/3933/0atc.jpg (http://img62.imageshack.us/i/0atc.jpg/)

[Gauthier]

Hunter-gatherer teeth? :laugh:

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/5003/zo4h.jpg (http://img694.imageshack.us/i/zo4h.jpg/)

[Itarildë]

I have shovel-shaped incisors and a Carabelli's cusp. Can't get more mongrel than that! Also, non of my 3rd molars have erupted...

[andyeatspoo]

Normal, evolved teeth here.

Although I have wisdom teeth so not that evolved :(

[andyeatspoo]

Hunter-gatherer teeth? :laugh:

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/5003/zo4h.jpg (http://img694.imageshack.us/i/zo4h.jpg/)

Nope. Looks like typical European petite teeth.

[Also]

I have shovel-shaped incisors

Mongoloid ancestry.

[Itarildë]

Mongoloid ancestry.

Must be in the very ancient past then!

[Dani Cutie]

My teeths are bit shovel but i dont understand the diference.

[Also]

Must be in the very ancient past then!

English people brought native americans back to England as tribe representatives and sometimes slaves.

[Dani Cutie]

And that picture? wich denture is european?

http://what-when-how.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/tmp18242_thumb.jpg

[Itarildë]

English people brought native americans back to England as tribe representatives and sometimes slaves.

I thought were joking but I have goggled it and found that Native Americans were brought over to England as early as 500 years ago and Native American DNA has been found in some modern inhabitants of Lancashire (where I am from on my fathers side) . How fucking weird is that!?

[Also]

I thought were joking but I have goggled it and found that Native Americans were brought over to England as early as 500 years ago and Native American DNA has been found in some modern inhabitants of Lancashire (where I am from on my fathers side) . How fucking weird is that!?

Haha, I never joke about English people.

[Reith]

Environment and diet has a lot to do with teeth and jaw development. Orthodontics is basically a western creation caused by a western diet..

The Maori had excellent teeth with their traditional foods. Western kids (my daughter included) are lazy and want to chew soft things...



Here is a good summary:

More than sixty years ago, a Cleveland dentist named Weston A. Price decided to embark on a series of unique investigations that would engage his attention and energies for the next ten years. Possessed of an inquiring mind and a spiritual nature, Price was disturbed by what he found when he looked into the mouths of his patients. Rarely did an examination of an adult client reveal anything but rampant decay, often accompanied by serious problems elsewhere in the body such as arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes, intestinal complaints and chronic fatigue. (They called it neurasthenia in Price’s day.) But it was the dentition of younger patients that gave him most cause for concern. He observed that crowded, crooked teeth were becoming more and more common, along with what Price called “facial deformities”–overbites, narrowed faces, underdevelopment of the nose, lack of well-defined cheekbones and pinched nostrils. Such children invariably suffered from one or more complaints that sound all too familiar to mothers of the 1990s: frequent infections, allergies, anemia, asthma, poor vision, lack of coordination, fatigue and behavioral problems. Price did not believe that such “physical degeneration” was God’s plan for mankind. He was rather inclined to believe that the creator intended physical perfection for all human beings, and that children should grow up free of ailments.

Price’s bewilderment gave way to a unique idea. He would travel to various isolated parts of the earth where the inhabitants had no contact with “civilization” to study their health and physical development. His investigations took him to isolated Swiss villages and a windswept island off the coast of Scotland. He studied traditional Eskimos, Indian tribes in Canada and the Florida Everglades, South Seas islanders, Aborigines in Australia, Maoris in New Zealand, Peruvian and Amazonian Indians and tribesmen in Africa. These investigations occurred at a time when there still existed remote pockets of humanity untouched by modern inventions; but when one modern invention, the camera, allowed Price to make a permanent record of the people he studied. The photographs Price took, the descriptions of what he found and his startling conclusions are preserved in a book considered a masterpiece by many nutrition researchers who followed in Price’s footsteps: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. Yet this compendium of ancestral wisdom is all but unknown to today’s medical community and modern parents.

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration is the kind of book that changes the way people view the world. No one can look at the handsome photographs of so-called primitive people–faces that are broad, well-formed and noble–without realizing that there is something very wrong with the development of modern children. In every isolated region he visited, Price found tribes or villages where virtually every individual exhibited genuine physical perfection. In such groups, tooth decay was rare and dental crowding and occlusions–the kind of problems that keep American orthodontists in yachts and vacation homes–nonexistent. Price took photograph after photograph of beautiful smiles, and noted that the natives were invariably cheerful and optimistic. Such people were characterized by “splendid physical development” and an almost complete absence of disease, even those living in physical environments that were extremely harsh.

The fact that “primitives” often exhibited a high degree of physical perfection and beautiful straight white teeth was not unknown to other investigators of the era. The accepted explanation was that these people were “racially pure” and that unfortunate changes in facial structure were due to “race mixing”. Price found this theory unacceptable. Very often the groups he studied lived close to racially similar groups that had come in contact with traders or missionaries, and had abandoned their traditional diet for foodstuffs available in the newly established stores—sugar, refined grains, canned foods, pasteurized milk and devitalized fats and oils–what Price called the “displacing foods of modern commerce.” In these peoples, he found rampant tooth decay, infectious illness and degenerative conditions. Children born to parents who had adopted the so-called civilized diet had crowded and crooked teeth, narrowed faces, deformities of bone structure and reduced immunity to disease. Price concluded that race had nothing to do with these changes. He noted that physical degeneration occurred in children of native parents who had adopted the white man’s diet; while mixed race children whose parents had consumed traditional foods were born with wide handsome faces and straight teeth.

The diets of the healthy “primitives” Price studied were all very different: In the Swiss village where Price began his investigations, the inhabitants lived on rich dairy products–unpasteurized milk, butter, cream and cheese–dense rye bread, meat occasionally, bone broth soups and the few vegetables they could cultivate during the short summer months. The children never brushed their teeth–in fact their teeth were covered in green slime–but Price found that only about one percent of the teeth had any decay at all. The children went barefoot in frigid streams during weather that forced Dr. Price and his wife to wear heavy wool coats; nevertheless childhood illnesses were virtually nonexistent and there had never been a single case of TB in the village. Hearty Gallic fishermen living off the coast of Scotland consumed no dairy products. Fish formed the mainstay of the diet, along with oats made into porridge and oatcakes. Fish heads stuffed with oats and chopped fish liver was a traditional dish, and one considered very important for children. The Eskimo diet, composed largely of fish, fish roe and marine animals, including seal oil and blubber, allowed Eskimo mothers to produce one sturdy baby after another without suffering any health problems or tooth decay. Well-muscled hunter-gatherers in Canada, the Everglades, the Amazon, Australia and Africa consumed game animals, particularly the parts that civilized folk tend to avoid–organ meats, glands, blood, marrow and particularly the adrenal glands–and a variety of grains, tubers, vegetables and fruits that were available. African cattle-keeping tribes like the Masai consumed no plant foods at all–just meat, blood and milk. South Seas islanders and the Maori of New Zealand ate seafood of every sort–fish, shark, octopus, shellfish, sea worms–along with pork meat and fat, and a variety of plant foods including coconut, manioc and fruit. Whenever these isolated peoples could obtain sea foods they did so–even Indian tribes living high in the Andes. These groups put a high value on fish roe which was available in dried form in the most remote Andean villages. Insects were another common food, in all regions except the Arctic. The foods that allow people of every race and every climate to be healthy are whole natural foods–meat with its fat, organ meats, whole milk products, fish, insects, whole grains, tubers, vegetables and fruit–not newfangled concoctions made with white sugar, refined flour and rancid and chemically altered vegetable oils.

[Reith]

Price took samples of native foods home with him to Cleveland and studied them in his laboratory. He found that these diets contained at least four times the minerals and water soluble vitamins–vitamin C and B complex–as the American diet of his day. Price would undoubtedly find a greater discrepancy in the 1990s due to continual depletion of our soils through industrial farming practices. What’s more, among traditional populations, grains and tubers were prepared in ways that increased vitamin content and made minerals more available–soaking, fermenting, sprouting and sour leavening.

It was when Price analyzed the fat soluble vitamins that he got a real surprise. The diets of healthy native groups contained at least ten times more vitamin A and vitamin D than the American diet of his day! These vitamins are found only in animal fats–butter, lard, egg yolks, fish oils and foods with fat-rich cellular membranes like liver and other organ meats, fish eggs and shell fish.

Price referred to the fat soluble vitamins as “catalysts” or “activators” upon which the assimilation of all the other nutrients depended–protein, minerals and vitamins. In other words, without the dietary factors found in animal fats, all the other nutrients largely go to waste.

Price also discovered another fat soluble vitamin that was a more powerful catalyst for nutrient absorption than vitamins A and D. He called it “Activator X” (now believed to be vitamin K2). All the healthy groups Price studied had the X Factor in their diets. It could be found in certain special foods which these people considered sacred–cod liver oil, fish eggs, organ meats and the deep yellow Spring and Fall butter from cows eating rapidly growing green grass. When the snows melted and the cows could go up to the rich pastures above their village, the Swiss placed a bowl of such butter on the church altar and lit a wick in it. The Masai set fire to yellow fields so that new grass could grow for their cows. Hunter-gatherers always ate the organ meats of the game they killed–often raw. Liver was held to be sacred by many African tribes. The Eskimos and many Indian tribes put a very high value on fish eggs.

The therapeutic value of foods rich in the X Factor was recognized during the years before the Second World War. Price found that the action of “high vitamin” Spring and Fall butter was nothing short of magical, especially when small doses of cod liver oil were also part of the diet. He used the combination of high vitamin butter and cod liver oil with great success to treat osteoporosis, tooth decay, arthritis, rickets and failure to thrive in children.

Other researchers used such foods very successfully for the treatment of respiratory diseases such as TB, asthma, allergies and emphysema. One of these was Francis Pottenger whose sanatorium in Monrovia, California served liberal amounts of liver, butter, cream and eggs to convalescing patients. He also gave supplements of adrenal cortex to treat exhaustion.

[Reith]

Dr. Price consistently found that healthy “primitives”, whose diets contained adequate nutrients from animal protein and fat, had a cheerful, positive attitude to life. He noted that most prison and asylum inmates have facial deformities indicative of pre-natal nutritional deficiencies.

Like Price, Pottenger was also a researcher. He decided to perform adrenalectomy on cats and then fed them the adrenal cortex extract he prepared for his patients in order to test its effectiveness. Unfortunately most of the cats died during the operation. He conceived of an experiment in which one group of cats received only raw milk and raw meat, while other groups received part of the diet as pasteurized milk or cooked meat. He found that only those cats whose diet was totally raw survived the adrenalectomy and as his research progressed, he noticed that only the all-raw group continued in good health generation after generation–they had excellent bone structure, freedom from parasites and vermin, easy pregnancies and gentle dispositions. All of the groups whose diet was partially cooked developed “facial deformities” of the exact same kind that Price observed in human groups on the “displacing foods of modern commerce”–narrowed faces,
crowded jaws, frail bones and weakened ligaments. They were plagued with parasites, developed all manner of diseases and had difficult pregnancies. Female cats became aggressive while the males became docile. After just three generations, young animals died before reaching adulthood and reproduction ceased.

The results of Pottenger’s cat experiments are often misinterpreted. They do not mean that humans should eat only raw foods–humans are not cats. Part of the diet was cooked in all the healthy groups Price studied. (Milk products, however, were almost always consumed raw.) Pottenger’s findings must be seen in the context of the Price research and can be interpreted as follows: When the human diet produces “facial deformities”–the progressive narrowing of the face and crowding of the teeth–extinction will occur if that diet is followed for several generations. The implications for western civilization–obsessed as it is with refined, highly sweetened convenience foods and low-fat items–is profound.

The research of Weston Price is not so much misinterpreted as ignored. In a country where the entire orthodox health establishment condemns saturated fat and cholesterol from animal sources, and where vending machines have become a fixture in our schools, who wants to hear about a peripatetic dentist who warned about the dangers of sugar and white flour, who thought kids should take cod liver oil and who believed that butter was the number one health food?

The irony is that as Price becomes more and more forgotten, more and more research appears in the scientific literature proving he was right. We now know that vitamin A is essential for the prevention of birth defects, for growth and development, for the health of the immune system and the proper functioning of all the glands. Scientists have discovered that the precursors to vitamin A–the carotenes found in plant foods–cannot be converted to true vitamin A by infants and children. They must get their vital supply of this nutrient from animal fats. Yet orthodox nutritional pundits are now pushing low-fat diets for children. Neither can diabetics and people with thyroid conditions convert carotenes to the fat soluble form of vitamin A–yet diabetics and people with low energy are told to avoid animal fats.

The scientific literature tells us that vitamin D is needed not only for healthy bones, and optimal growth and development, but also to prevent colon cancer, MS and reproductive problems.

Cod liver oil is an excellent source of vitamin D. Cod liver oil also contains special fats called EPA and DHA. The body uses EPA to make substances that help prevent blood clots, and that regulate a myriad of biochemical processes. Recent research shows that DHA is essential to the development of the brain and nervous system. Adequate DHA in the mother’s diet is necessary for the proper development of the retina in the infant she carries. DHA in mother’s milk helps prevent learning disabilities. Cod liver oil and foods like liver and egg yolk supply this essential nutrient to the developing fetus, to nursing infants and to growing children.

Butter contains both vitamin A and D, as well as other beneficial substances. Conjugated linoleic acid in butterfat is a powerful protection against cancer. Certain fats called glycospingolipids aid digestion. Butter is rich in trace minerals, and naturally yellow Spring and Fall butter contains the X factor.

Saturated fats from animal sources–portrayed as the enemy–form an important part of the cell membrane; they protect the immune system and enhance the utilization of essential fatty acids. They are needed for the proper development of the brain and nervous system. Certain types of saturated fats provide quick energy and protect against pathogenic microorganisms in the intestinal tract; other types provide energy to the heart.

Cholesterol is essential to the development of the brain and nervous system of the infant, so much so that mother’s milk is not only extremely rich in the substance, but also contains special enzymes that aid in the absorption of cholesterol from the intestinal tract. Cholesterol is the body’s repair substance; when the arteries are damaged because of weakness or irritation, cholesterol steps in to patch things up and prevent aneurysms. Cholesterol is a powerful antioxidant, protecting the body from cancer; it is the precursor to the bile salts, needed for fat digestion; from it the adrenal hormones are formed, those that help us deal with stress and those that regulate sexual function.

The scientific literature is equally clear about the dangers of polyunsaturated vegetable oils–the kind that are supposed to be good for us. Because polyunsaturates are highly subject to rancidity, they increase the body’s need for vitamin E and other antioxidants. (Canola oil, in particular, can create severe vitamin E deficiency.) Excess consumption of vegetable oils is especially damaging to the reproductive organs and the lungs–both of which are sites for huge increases in cancer in the US. In test animals, diets high in polyunsaturates from vegetable oils inhibit the ability to learn, especially under conditions of stress; they are toxic to the liver; they compromise the integrity of the immune system; they depress the mental and physical growth of infants; they increase levels of uric acid in the blood; they cause abnormal fatty acid profiles in the adipose tissues; they have been linked to mental decline and chromosomal damage; they accelerate aging. Excess consumption of polyunsaturates is associated with increasing rates of cancer, heart disease and weight gain; excess use of commercial vegetable oils interferes with the production of prostaglandins–localized tissue hormones– leading to an array of complaints such as autoimmune diseases, sterility and PMS. Vegetable oils are more toxic when heated. One study reported that polyunsaturates turn to varnish in the intestines. A study by a plastic surgeon found that women who consumed mostly vegetable oils had far more wrinkles than those who consumed traditional animal fats.

When polyunsaturated oils are hardened to make margarine and shortening by a process called hydrogenation, they deliver a double whammy of increased cancer, reproductive problems, learning disabilities and growth problems in children.

The vital research of Weston Price remains largely forgotten because the importance of his findings, if recognized by the general populace, would bring down America’s largest industry–food processing and its three supporting pillars–refined sweeteners, white flour and vegetable oils. Representatives of this industry have worked behind the scenes to erect the huge edifice of the “lipid hypothesis”–the untenable theory that saturated fats and cholesterol cause heart disease and cancer. All one has to do is look at the statistics to know that it isn’t true. Butter consumption at the turn of the century was eighteen pounds per person per year, and the use of vegetable oils almost nonexistent, yet cancer and heart disease were rare. Today butter consumption hovers just above four pounds per person per year while vegetable oil consumption has soared–and cancer and heart disease are endemic.Dr. Weston Price discovered that healthy tribal groups fed special foods to parents before conception and during pregnancy; and to children during their growing years. His analyses showed that these foods were exceptionally rich in the fat-soluble nutrients found only in animal fats such as butter and marine oils. The universal “primitive” tradition of feeding nutrient-rich foods to pregnant women and growing children puts western medical practices to shame.
What the research really shows is that both refined carbohydrates and vegetable oils cause imbalances in the blood and at the cellular level that lead to an increased tendency to form blood clots, leading to myocardial infarction. This kind of heart disease was virtually unknown in America in 1900. Today it has reached epidemic levels. Atherosclerosis, or the buildup of hardened plague in the artery walls, cannot be blamed on saturated fats or cholesterol. Very little of the material in this plaque is cholesterol, and a 1994 study appearing in the Lancet showed that almost three quarters of the fat in artery clogs is unsaturated. The “artery clogging” fats are not animal fats but vegetable oils.

Built into the whole cloth of the lipid hypothesis is the postulate that the traditional foods of our ancestors–the butter, cream, eggs, liver, meat and fish eggs that Price recognized were necessary to produce “splendid physical development”–are bad for us. A number of stratagems have served to imbed this notion in the consciousness of the people, not the least of which was the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP), during which your tax dollars paid for a packet of “information” on cholesterol and heart disease to be sent to every physician in America. As the American Pharmaceutical Association served on the coordinating committee of this massive program, it is not surprising that the packet instructed physicians on ways to test serum cholesterol levels, and what drugs to prescribe for patients whose cholesterol levels put them in the “at risk” category–defined arbitrarily as anyone over 200 mg/dl, the vast majority of the adult population. Physicians received instruction on the “prudent diet,” low in saturated fat and cholesterol, for “at risk” Americans, even though studies indicated that such diets did not offer any significant protection against heart disease. They did, however, increase the risk of death from cancer, intestinal diseases, accidents, suicide and stroke. A specific recommendation contained in the NCEP information packet was the replacement of butter with margarine.

In 1990, two generations after Weston Price conceived of studying isolated nonindustrialized people as a way of learning how to confer good health on our children, the National Cholesterol Education Program recommended the “prudent diet” for all Americans above the age of two. The advantage of such a diet is supposed to be reduced risk of heart disease in later life–even though not a single study has shown such an hypothesis to be tenable. What the scientific literature does tell us is that low fat diets for children, or diets in which vegetable oils have been substituted for animal fats, result in failure to thrive–failure to grow tall and strong–as well as learning disabilities, susceptibility to infection and behavioral problems. Teenage girls who adhere to such a diet risk reproductive problems. If they do manage to conceive, their chances of giving birth to a low birth weight baby, or a baby with birth defects, are high.

[Daco Celtic]

I have Vlach teeth