"These data were first published in 1924. Why has such a major medical finding, published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, faded into obscurity?"<p>Possibly because the reported research results were not replicated? I wish I had the citation at hand for a finding that 50 percent or more of all medical research findings published in top peer-reviewed journals end up not being replicated. But perhaps that finding can be found in one of the sources cited in Peter Norvig's excellent article about analyzing scientific research papers,<p><a href="http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html" rel="nofollow">http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html</a><p>which I recommend readers of this thread check as they consider the claims made in the submitted blog post.<p>After edit: Another problem at the practical level is that it may very well be that a diet optimal for recalcification of teeth (there is no controversy at all that teeth can recalcify throughout life, that's the point of fluoride treatments, but the question is by how much) may not be optimal for cardiovascular health or some other aspect of your health that is important to you. The way human evolution works is that all of your body parts are fitted by haphazard adaptation from ancestral patterns using available materials in an environment of biochemical trade-offs, and it may be a better trade-off to have teeth that decay after reproductive age and a heart that keeps beating longer than to have teeth that never need to have cavities filled. That would have to be the subject of further research, to see which diet is optimal overall. (Yes, I am aware that some research tends to show that good dental hygiene contributes to good cardiovascular health, with the hypothesized mechanism being that infected gums allow bacteria to enter the bloodstream and cause inflammation of the heart's blood vessels.)
Great article.<p>The fact that teeth could heal themselves was unknown to me for quite some time. I thought that if you had a cavity, you had to have it filled.<p>I used to have horrid teeth (and the diet to match). I stopped drinking soda and my dentist recommended a product called Recaldent (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recaldent" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recaldent</a>). This concentrated paste helped most of my teeth strengthen and recalcify.
Vitamin D = the most common vitamin that doctors themselves actually take: <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/diet.fitness/11/13/ep.vitamin.primer/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/diet.fitness/11/13/ep.vitamin...</a>
Much of the American population (including a majority of pregnant women) are deficient in vitamin D. Odds are good that you are too.<p>A big contributing factor is insufficient exposure to sunlight. Some have speculated that seasonal winter flu season is attributable to vitamin D levels.<p><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-07-13-vitamin-d-tests_N.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-07-13-vitamin-d-tes...</a>
What I don't understand is that no one addresses the bacterial component of cavities. I just had some work done and my dentist clearly stated that cavities are caused by bacteria eating through the enamel. I get that poor diet contributes to calcium loss and so the body will re-strengthen teeth given improved nutrition, however this will not do anything to address the bacterial infection problem.
There is a lot more to this story, but briefly, the pH of the mouth. The more acidic and the longer it is acidic, the more likely you are to get caries.<p>Also, just because Diet 3 is a lot better than Diet 1 (and 2 for that matter), that doesn't mean that Diet 3 is the ideal/best diet. We would need to research this more using Diet 3 as the starting point.
In my life, I have eaten very little refined/added sugar (i.e. very rarely do I eat such things). Aged 30 I have no fillings: the only dental work I have had done was having my teeth straightened and having eight of them removed (yes eight, though not all at once) that didn't fit in my mouth (I have big teeth). When I was a child, my dental hygiene wasn't always very good.<p>A single data point doesn't tell you anything. But there it is, anyway.
This sounds great... maybe we'll be able to avoid spending $12k to get my wife's teeth fixed (<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=454040" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=454040</a>).