“Milk has the right ingredients for promoting oral health. Besides the obvious beneficial factor, calcium, milk also contains multiple proteins important for oral health. Casein is a family of proteins comprising 80% of the milk protein that can help to recruit calcium phosphates to repair the cavity. Casein is also able to prevent the adhesion of cavity-causing bacteria to the tooth surface. In addition to casein, milk also contains whey proteins, lactoferrin, lysozyme and antibodies that can promote oral health via their strong antibacterial activities…
These proteins are generally thought to have a positive effect on cariogenesis via two mechanism: prevention of demineralization and inhibition ob bacterial attachment and/or biofilm formation.”
May 2006
Justin Merritt, PhD, Research Scientist, Fengxia Qi, PhD, Assistant Professor, and Wenyuan Shi, PhD, Professor and Chair, all of the department of Oral Biology at the UCLA School of Dentistry, wrote in their May 2006 paper "Milk Helps Build Strong Teeth and Promotes Oral Health for Life," published in the Journal of the California Dental Association: