Skeleton key could unlock secret of modern day children’s health
ANGLO SAXON skeletons – and their centuries-old milk teeth – could hide the secrets to help identify modern children most at risk from conditions such as obesity and heart disease, academics have found.
Researchers from the University of Bradford have found that analysis of teeth from children’s skeletons at a 10th Century site gave a more reliable indicator than bone of the effects of diet and health.
The study, from a settlement at Raunds Furnells in Northamptonshire, involved a group known to have been undernourished. This can limit the growth of bones, hiding evidence such as age, while teeth continue to grow despite such stresses and can act as an archive of diet and health for both the child and mother, even in utero.
Dr Julia Beaumont, of the University of Bradford’s School of Archaeological and Forensic Sciences, said: “This is the first time that we have been able to measure with confidence the in-utero nitrogen values of dentine.
“Our hypothesis is that bone isn’t growing but teeth are. So archaeology can’t rely on the evidence from bones alone because bone is not forming and recording during high stress and we can’t be sure, for example, of the age of a skeleton.
“Teeth are more reliable as they continue to grow even when a child is starving.”
As well as the archaeological significance of this method, Dr Beaumont believes it has a direct application to modern medicine.
She said: “There is a growing consensus that factors such as low birth weight have a significant impact on our likelihood of developing conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and obesity and that the first 1,000 days from conception onwards set our ‘template’.
“By analysing the milk teeth of modern children in the same way as the Anglo Saxon skeletons, we can measure the same values and see the risk factors they are likely to face in later life, enabling measures to be taken.”
The study, Comparing apples and oranges: Why infant bone collagen may not reflect dietary intake in the same way as dentine colagen, was published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.