from Hacker News

Study of ancient British oral microbiomes reveals shift following Black Death

by theNewMicrosoft on 12/4/23, 5:56 AM with 55 comments

• by stareatgoats on 12/5/23, 8:24 AM

  Studying the calcified plaque in the teeth of ancient populations can be a better proxy for understanding the oral microbiomes in pre-industrialized societies than using present day indigenous societies practicing subsistence lifestyle.

  Using this method this study might just prove, or at least insinuate, that the survivors of the Second Plague Pandemic that earned higher incomes and could afford higher-calorie foods are in fact possibly responsible for a "wide range of chronic diseases, including obesity, cardiovascular disease and poor mental health".

  To their credit, they won't investigate the teeth of pre-industrialized people "without the permission and collaboration of decedent populations and stakeholders".

  I'm not saying nothing good will come out research such as this. It is just interesting that it contains so much irrelevant signaling.

• by gumby on 12/5/23, 10:21 AM

  Well that was not what I had expected!

  I assumed from the title that the oral bacteria would reveal some preferential defense or resistance to yersinia pestis, but instead it was entirely due to the post-epidemic economies of the survivors.

  This is more like the situation of beriberi crippling the imperial Japanese navy in the 1880s

• by yosito on 12/5/23, 12:45 PM

  With the number of anecdotal reports I've heard of people having gut problems post-Covid, I wonder if this will also be true in our times.

• by anovikov on 12/5/23, 12:29 PM

  TL;DR: not being desperately poor is unnatural for humans, and slowly kills us.

• by estiaan on 12/5/23, 11:09 AM

  I thought ancient meant 1000+ years ago?