The Etruscan and Samnite populations of pre-Roman Italy were afflicted with periodontitis, a severe gum inflammation that was the consequence of both poor oral hygiene and dietary practices. This is the finding of a study by the University of Pisa, carried out in collaboration with the Universities of Zurich and Basel, and published in the Journal of Proteomics. "The first millennium BCE is a complex period in Italian history, marked by substantial socioeconomic changes in pre-Roman communities", explains Giulia Riccomi, the first author of the study and a researcher at the University of Pisa. "The emergence of social structures appears to have been reflected in differential access to food resources, with elites consuming more meat and the less privileged classes relying primarily on carbohydrates. In both situations, this circumstance appears to have fostered the emergence of oral diseases that we now regard as typical of modernity". The study examined the osteodental remains of 63 people from six Etruscan-Samnite necropolises, including Volterra and Tarquinia, dating from the 7th to 4th century BC. The study found that more than 20% of the studied dentition had symptoms of periodontitis, and biomolecular analysis of 33 samples of dental calculus revealed the presence of proteins specific to the bacteria Porphyromonas gingivalis, the primary pathogen responsible for the condition.