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Using Salt to Kill Dental Bacteria

One of the very best and cheapest things we can for our oral health is to irrigate our mouth with salt. Salt has been used throughout the ages as a natural antiseptic, and as a great way of killing the bacteria that destroy food. Many foods such as vegetables, fish and meat were stored in brine - which is simply water saturated with salt. Salt does an excellent job of killing the dental bacteria and has no harmful side effects if you rinse the mouth with it.

The salt also provides a strong alkalinizing of the mouth just as the bacteria are forming acids.
Although the p.H shock will be temporary, it will nevertheless help to kill off more bacteria.

Oral Surgeons will often advise patients to rinse the mouth with salt once the wounds have begun to heal, and it's a well know folk remedy for alleviating a toothache.

Scientific studies of the die off from dental bacteria as result of a saline solution are few and far between. This study in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology published in 1975 (yes, that is not a typo) looks at the best way to transport dental bacteria. Ironically, they were looking at a salt solution to preserve the bacteria. What they found was:

Storage of dental plaque in reduced salt solution proved unsatisfactory for most bacteria (less than 10% survival)

Salt does indeed do a great job of killing dental bacteria.