Clean mouth! Brushing your teeth, mouthwash don't help

You may gargle religiously with a mouthwash everyday and may even brush your teeth four times a day. Unfortunately, your mouth is still not as clean as your ancestors' mouths were.

Director of the University of Adelaide Centre for Ancient DNA, Professor Alan Cooper, said that human mouth is in "a permanent state of disease" because modern food like processed sugar and flour, has decreased the amount of good bacteria in the human mouth, resulting in tooth decay and gum disease, reported newscom.au.[caption id="attachment_631412" align="alignleft" width="380"]

Keeping the mouth clean is tough. AFP[/caption]

As published in the journal Nature Genetics, Cooper and his team, studied teeth from prehistoric northern European human skeletons to base the claims.

The loss of diversity of bacteria unlike the prehistoric skeletons is linked to medical challenges like obesity, autism and diabetes.

"It is best to eat a wide variety of organic locally produced fresh foods," Cooper was quoted as saying by newscom.au.

Rampant use of antibiotics particularly in children is something the professor did not support.

"Mouthwash probably also does more harm than good, by removing the diversity that can suppress disease-causing bacteria," the newscom.au piece said referring to Cooper.