A viewer writes: “About 8 years ago, my dentist informed me that I had periodontal disease. It mysteriously went away…The dentist always marvels at my homecare. But I’m not really doing anything that different. I started using salt and baking soda instead of toothpaste. It was a recommendation from Edgar Cayce.” Does this have medicinal and perhaps prophylactic benefit for maintaining healthy teeth and gums?

This is actually the case, that this approach to dental hygiene has a mechanistic basis in the chemistry of that combination of ingredients in the environment along the mucosal surfaces of the gum tissue especially, as they abut the teeth, emerging from the gum line where there can be more likely a breach of defenses with things getting lodged in between and predisposing to bacterial growth and become the center of tooth decay or infection of the gum tissue proper. Either one will be a long-term liability. So the benefit of using something that can effectively deter such insults to the body is very worth doing. Keep in mind this was also early along in terms of the evolution of consumer products for dental care. But even so, what is offered in such commercial preparations is not necessarily based on deep science nor represent the best of possibilities. Sometimes a simple nostrum that is time-honored because it was stumbled upon, often with the aid of intuitive impulsed information, can do just as well or better, for reasons not appreciated by the user and would not be apparent to the scientific community were they asked about potential advantages of such an approach. It is quite unfortunate that the arena of natural cures has such a checkered history in still not be being exploited fully for the potential benefits that body of knowledge can offer.