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,
http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html
which I recommend readers of this thread check as they consider the claims made in the submitted blog post.
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.)
The diet is low on refined carbohydrates (which lead to heart disease http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-...) and rich in vitamins.
I believe the theory is, is that the body uses insulin to convert glucose to glycogen, AKA 'animal starch', and every other effect (that I'm aware of) it has on the body is not considered good. Example: It promotes triglyceride production from fatty acids (high triglycerides are usually a big factor in heart disease), and decreases the metabolism of fats (I think everyone wants this one high), proteins and reduces gluconeogenesis, which can exacerbate lactose intolerance in some people.
Everything more complex than raw glucose doesn't require insulin. That's why the body largely doesn't react to fructose (which is a result of our ancestry, primates largely live in a symbiosis with the trees they feed off because larger animals like Elephants frequently kill the trees in the process of foraging, but shrieking monkeys tend to stop them) so that we do consume more of it. I think it also helps that foods high in fructose (IE fruits) are generally also high in vitamins. I mean some of the recommended RDA's for vitamin C are actually around 6,000-12,000 mg a day (30,000 mg if you're sick). Basically from what I understand, if you look at our close relatives diets (which are very similar to our ancestors diets) they essentially eat 1:1 ratio of vitamin C (in mg) to kcals. So an adult male should eat 2,500 mg of vitamin C and 2,500 kcals. Incidentally vitamin C is used in the body to produce carnitine, which moves fatty acids into the mitochondria to produce ATP.
Your average goat produces around 13,000 mg of vitamin C in normal health through biosynthesis, which has to make you wonder about WHO's RDA of 45 mg a day if a goat produces 290 times that amount. We, unfortunately don't biosynthesise vitamin C.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03...
How much clearer do you need the evidence to be?
Looking at the citations, it seems that the effect of diet on tooth healing have been forgotten more than disporoved. They are cited in papers focusing on tooth developement in children (but not regeneration later on), and on the role of Vitamin D and other food in Rickets. But tooth regrowth is a well documented process in animals, and, according to these papers, it also happens in humans.
BTW, the linked blog post has it wrong. White flour is the least Ca++ chelating cereal (once again, according to E. Mellanby). Oatmeal appears to be the worst (see 1).
1. THE RELATION OFDIET TO HEALTH AND DISEASE.Some new investigations. E Mellanby, BMJ apr 1930 http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=231287...
2. THE EFFECT OF DIET ON THE DEVELOPEMENT AND EXTENSION OF CARIES IN THETEETH OF CHILDREN. (Preliminary Note.) MAY MELLANBY, C. LEE PATTISON AND C. W. PROUD BMJ aug 1924 http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=230490...
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Side note for fun: It looks like bad OCR software reinvented l33t sp34k. This is what you get when you copy/paste the title of the first paper referenced here:
THE RELATION OFDIET TO HEALTH AND DISEASE.
S4OMlJE 1E'E XET !NVESTIW.41T!ONS). BY
EDWARI) MA1iT,LANBY, M.A. M.D.C.kMn.l F.R.C.P., F.R.S.,
PROFESSOR OF PHARMACOILOC', XJNTVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD.
http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Paleolithic-Art-Dale-Guthrie/dp...
who is a professor of zoology specializing in Paleolithic fauna and an accomplished artist and bow hunter. He cites all the best primary research literature on Paleolithic life in the notes in his book. One fact Guthrie points out is that the lifespan for Paleolithic Homo sapiens was only forty years.
See, if evolution is about the survival of the fittest, then would have not those hunter-gathers who got unhealthy because of eating pasta not pass on their genes?
What I mean is: have we stopped evolving since hunter- gathering times?
Was that finding replicated?
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.
I used to have horrid teeth (and the diet to match). I stopped drinking soda and my dentist recommended a product called Recaldent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recaldent). This concentrated paste helped most of my teeth strengthen and recalcify.
It looks like straighten but it's a different word.
But I'm right there with you. I could never hack the Atkins diet. If I had no teeth, I'd just soak the bread in broth. :)
Also saliva contains immune components that can stop the bacteria. Bacteria may be the final component, but the causes of decay lie elsewhere.
It's not really an infection either, anymore than the gazillions of bacteria living on skin are.
A big contributing factor is insufficient exposure to sunlight. Some have speculated that seasonal winter flu season is attributable to vitamin D levels.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-07-13-vitamin-d-tes...
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.
A single data point doesn't tell you anything. But there it is, anyway.
Pip pip!
