Yes, some studies and observations suggest that pre-contact Aboriginal Australians had generally good oral health with low rates of tooth decay and periodontal disease.
It's not just sugar, starchy foods like bread, potatoes start breaking down quickly right in the mouth into simple sugars, it's enough that white bread has a higher glycemic index than actual sugar :)
Never in History have humans had as good teeth as they do today. Also consider that until we had vaccines and antibiotics in the early 20th century, the average lifespan was very short.
Not deeply knowledgeable here but imagine this depended quite a bit on where you were living in 1100 CE.
I think it was fairly rare in Europe, but IDK how well those numbers capture what was common for the majority of the human population living elsewhere.
It was pretty rare even among medieval kings to live to be 70.
The first English king to be definitely alive on their 70th birthday (though no longer "in office") was Philip of Spain (jure uxoris) in 1597, so not a medieval king. That is Early Modern Age.
Elizabeth I. didn't make it, though barely, and so the next to reach 70 was George II. in November 1753! Only since the second half of the 18th century is it common for British monarchs to reach their seventies.
Richard Cromwell lived to be 85, but he was never a king, only Lord Protector.
Edgar Aetheling lived to be 73, but he was never king either, due to certain William arriving en force from Normandy.
Another commenter raised the ransom point for kings. One of the reasons why higher nobility and the king's household was so visible on the battlefields was that they shouldn't get killed by mistake.
As for the common folk, if you look at actual medieval cemeteries that were excavated and studied, the peasants didn't live long either. The age of death can be assessed by looking at the bones, and already the above 50 cohort is somewhat thin, while the above 60 is infrequent.
You underestimate the effects of hunger on mortality. Prior to introduction of potatoes (e.g., ~ 18th century in much of Europe), failed crops would be a common occurrence, happening ~5-6 times during life of a normal rural person. If two of them happened back-to-back, the resulting mortality was already serious, and older people would often be victims. It made sense to use whatever food was left for the younger, stronger generation which was still able to work.
Famine was basically never a concern for the royalty. We have a record of the English king going dinner-less once, but that is not a threat to your life.
BTW If you really want to find a relatively long-lived sector of the society, it would be the high clergy, which had all the upsides of noble life (food, warmth in winter) and almost none of the downsides (most wouldn't fight, murder was less common). This is the only "job" which saw some 70 y.o.s still alive and active, mostly as cardinals.
Medieval European nobility tend not to die in battle. They were captured and ransomed. Richard III died in battle but nobody was gonna ransom him.
Assassination definitely brings down the average. But a fair number of English monarchs managed to die in bed. (I was gonna write British, but no: the Scottish kings practically never died in bed. Unless they were stabbed in their sleep.)
Fair enough related to battle, but that's not the only risk of waging war. A fair few kings caught diseases from their campaigns - which they may not have at home. Overall from some light Wikipedia browsing, it seemed to me that around 1/3 of medieval English kings died from assassination or battlefield wounds & diseases. Note that Richard III is basically the last Medieval king, I'm talking about earlier periods.
Sure. We can also treat cancer better than ever before, but it would still be interesting to know where the rise in cancer cases came from, even if we can patch around the problem and are better off overall. Same for dental health: my understanding is also that people didn't used to need toothpaste to enjoy a comparable dental health
> Never in History have humans had as good teeth as they do today.
This is absolutely untrue. What is your reference?
Never in history have so many people had such "good" looking teeth, but they involve an enormous amount of prosthesis and amalgam. Veneers aren't good teeth, they're intentionally destroyed teeth used to root false teeth.
And brushing, although it keeps teeth clean and not stinky, deepens the gum pockets around teeth that host the microorganisms that will eventually uproot them.
I'll take my bets on modern day britain having much better dental health than any other british era back to the romans. Starchy food + no brushing = bad news.
