I grew up in the mtns of Tennessee and now live in rural N. Ga. There is a distinct narrowness of face and lack of chin in the poor that have been living here, some what starved for proper nutrients, for generations. I look at my own family and see it. Proof enough for me, though I have never doubted W.A. Price's work.

I've read that bone bulks up in response to stress applied by the attached muscles. I wonder if people were eating tougher foods, chewing leather to soften it, cracking nuts and bones with their jaws, would their musculature and bone structure change to a more healthy-looking standard?

Are you talking about long faces? It is an interesting idea that it can be caused by diet and not genetics. Do faces change or do they stay the same? That's what I'm wondering. Most people would say the face you grow into is the one you are stuck with for life.

I've often wondered about this. My mother grew up in Peru eating a diet heavy in meat and vegetables (with the odd potato thrown in there) as did my father. However, i ate a lot of candy as a child and had to have one adult tooth removed. Due to the tooth being yanked out one side of my teeth is a bit more spaced out than the other. However, none of my teeth were ever crowded and I had enough room for my wisdom teeth to grow in. If it hadn't been for that damn tooth I would have a perfect smile. My face is oval shaped and not broad, so all your teeth can definitely fit in a narrower face.

One very probable reason is allergies. In development, form and function go hand in hand. A child with allergies will most likely breath through their mouth (since their nose is clogged). This will prevent the palate from developing a broad shape that is usually molded by the tongue. A narrow palate leads to a narrow arch, crowded teeth and a long narrow face.

I have a celiac gene (HLA-DQ2). When I was an infant I had a horrible rash/reaction to formula. The doctor suggested celiac (amazing as it was 1972). Mom tried a soy-based formula for awhile. Eventually the rash went away. It would be over thirty years before I revisited that celiac diagnosis.

I have had unending problems with my teeth. All my life and continuing to today. Even after braces, they kept pushing inward. Had two supernumerary teeth removed as a teenager. I have one tooth that's pretty much behind all the rest of 'em. Dentist is going to pull it at my next appointment.

I'm convinced that there's a connection, but it's not based on anything more than WAP and my own experience.

I am presenting next Sat AM at the AHS in Harvard on this very subject. I've put up a few post trying to test the water on what angle to approach this on. As a UK orthodontist I am coming from a very different group and after presenting last year and seeing the responses I wanted to ask for your opinions on something prior to the presentation. It is only 20min long which does not give me time to fully build the foundations for what will I hope answer the questions that you propose here. I want to avoid saying something that I could support given more time but which jars the audience and they them lose the thread and confidence in what I am saying.

First to describe what we are talking about; Price described this as the physical degeneration of the face; the point is that faces are getting longer in modern society. If you only have so much face as it becomes longer it becomes thinner and shorter. This lead to narrow jaws high palates, a lack of space for the wisdom teeth, crowded lower front teeth, difficulty passing air through the nasal passages, problems opening the eustation tube (and aerating the inner ear).

The presentation that I will give, argues that Western Price took a wrong turn when looking for the cause of the problem, he suggested that it was due to a “prenatal injury” from a lack of Vitamin A and D. The observed that when a “white man’s shop” (very un PC) opened in an area the faces then lengthened. However this may have been due to the fact that the concentrated calories available from processed carbs meant that they were then eating small amounts of a soft diet decreasing the mechanical loading by a factor of 20 or more. In addition to this the level of allergies has increased dramatically. If your nose is blocked you have to breathe through your mouth lowering your tongue, which soon becomes a habit however you breathe afterwards.

Anyone who has a low tongue posture and lower muscle tone (in the jaw closing muscles) will progressively suffer from longer faces or physical degeneration of the face. Faces that are not the right shape do not function as well, and there are a host of other suspected symptoms of this problem. Unfortunately the orthodontic solution of pushing the teeth into alignment after removing any excess and holding them there indefinitely afterwards may actually be lengthening faces, which would be worsening the underlying problem while treating symptoms (poor medicine).

To anyone who has a spare 5 min, I would really appreciate a critical appraisal, which some suggestions of where this is unclear and where I should give support to the argument? Thank you very much,

Mike Mew

PS my grandfather (an orthodontist) gave my father (an orthodontist) a first edition of Prices book, long since lost