"The modern mouth basically exists in a permanent disease state."

You don't think your eating habits are important? An international team of scientists have been studying how our evolution over the last 7500 years has impacted the bacteria we carry with us, and the important health consequences," says study leader Professor Alan Cooper, Director of University of Adelaide's Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD).

"Oral bacteria in modern man are markedly less diverse than historic populations and this is thought to contribute to chronic oral and other disease in post-industrial lifestyles."

Professor Cooper says: "The composition of oral bacteria changed markedly with the introduction of farming, and again around 150 years ago. With the introduction of processed sugar and flour in the Industrial Revolution, we can see a dramatically decreased diversity in our oral bacteria, allowing domination by caries-causing strains. The modern mouth basically exists in a permanent disease state."

Read more here: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-ancient-teeth-bacteria-disease-evolution.html