Flossing is a complete waste of time

fadsfasfasfadsf wrote:

Stop linking to low quality content. Read the studies. They HAVE been done. The results are very inconclusive.

http://www.nature.com/ebd/journal/v13/n1/abs/6400835a.html

If flossing was a drug, it would not get FDA approval.

From your link:

"Flossing plus toothbrushing showed a statistically significant benefit compared to toothbrushing in reducing gingivitis."

Sounds good to me.

fadsfasfasfadsf wrote:Stop linking to low quality content. Read the studies. They HAVE been done. The results are very inconclusive.

http://www.nature.com/ebd/journal/v13/n1/abs/6400835a.html

This study supports my point. The benefits of flossing are unproven. Unproven does not mean a waste of time. A waste of time would mean that flossing had been shown to be ineffective in preventing periodontitis. That has not been shown.

At least until someone does an adequate study on flossing, this is really part of figuring out the balance between evidence-based practice and the experience of clinicians. Dentists and periodontists still recommend flossing based on their clinical experience and a reasonable hypothesis about the benefits of flossing. Some people might reject this advice because it is not evidence-based, using modern standards of proof. But rejecting all advice not supported by evidence-based medicine or dentistry does not mean that you will be right in your choice.

flossing gets stuff out from between your teeth and that's good enuf for me

I have lots of gaps in my teeth (despite braces) and trap a ton of food. Especially meat. If I don't floss after eating, that crap just sits stuck between my teeth driving me nuts. Brushing doesn't get it out either.

I always thought the purpose of flossing was to get out food that's trapped between teeth. It obviously works for that. Who EVER assumed it had anything to do with reducing plaque? This is a "study" apparently boasting of disproving something no one ever thought anyway.

Use a Waterpik or equivalent.

It is all about avoiding inflammation of the gums due to debris and bacteria accumulation.

Only floss the teeth you want to keep. Don't floss or brush if you want to achieve that nasty rotten toothed brit smile.

I was not any medications before, during, or since.

I go one step further. Go to a medical supply store, buy one of those metal dental cleaning devices with a hook thing-y, and clean your gum line once a month or so in addition to regular flossing and brushing. It's not hard to learn how to use this tool on yourself. That sounded kind of wrong but what the hell ever, it works to keep the decay away.

British Teeth wrote:

Only floss the teeth you want to keep. Don't floss or brush if you want to achieve that nasty rotten toothed brit smile.

Truth

If using toothpaste containing triclosan, it probably doesn't matter.

Bad Wigins wrote:

the study sez:

Count dentist Damien Walmsley, scientific adviser to the British Dental Association, among the sceptics. “It’s important to tell people to do the basics. Flossing is not part of the basics.”

No better authority out there on teeth than the British:). Actually, their mouths full of brown teeth do have relatively little decay due to all of the fluoride in tea. It is also the reason they tend to have more brittle teeth due to hyperfluorosis.

Go ahead and don't floss, dentists will be happy to fill your teeth, crown your teeth, treat your periodontal disease, etc. as you grow older. The two demographics that receive the most dental procedures are people under 18 and people over 60. The damage you are doing may not be evident now, but it will catch up with you later.

A dentist can tell in a second if you floss or don't floss (people that floss generally have healthy pink gums and little or no calculus / plaque between their teeth, where as people who do not floss tend to have red, inflamed gums and lots of calculus / plaque and decay between their teeth). Even if you are not getting cavities between our teeth (which I doubt), over time you get more and more bone loss around the roots of your teeth to the point where they just start flappin' around.

tooth sargent wrote:

Jonny_Joepete wrote:

..... I use the nail file on a finger nail clip to remove plaque on my lower front teeth and the dentist removes the rest.....

..... People who don't floss and otherwise consider themselves classy rich and beautiful, with makeup and expensive clothes, are poseurs and pigs.

Jesus dude, you sound way too hard core about this. OCD maybe?

Hard core in the sense that you're going to need artificial teeth after filing away at what you've got left.

Hard to believe this guy is actually using a steel nail file on his teeth. Why not just get out the power sander?

dkjfzkj wrote:

If using toothpaste containing triclosan, it probably doesn't matter.

What exactly are you trying to say about triclosan in toothpaste?

You are completely missing the point about the nefarious British Dental Association.

Yes, go ahead and get fillings, but the BDA will know exactly where they are.

This is part of the statistics' disease that says that in the absence of a perfect randomized scientific trial showing that there are one or two benefits, it is worthless. Maybe flossing doesn't remove plaque. You will not get a study where people all floss "correctly." But people who floss regularly have healthier gums and experience tells us that we get a lot of crap out from between our teeth that we can't reach with a toothbrush. I mean, if you think about it, why brush only the front and back and do nothing to clean between where most stuff gets stuck? Experience also tells us that flossing affects the gums in such a way as to limit bleeding. If you go a long time without flossing and then floss, your gums bleed. If you floss regularly, they don't bleed or not much. It is also quite painful when stuff gets caught between your teeth and your teeth are tight. I say this and I am no fan whatsoever of dentists because they constantly find cavities when there is nothing (studies show they always find cavities but only agree on which teeth have cavities 50% of the time) and because I suffered through years of orthodontic work as a teenager on grounds that my teeth would start to impinge on each other decades later, and despite that work, they did and I have already had one tooth break from the teeth around it.

flossoverthedetails wrote:

Gilbert and Sullivan wrote:http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/flossing-is-a-complete-waste-of-time-investigation/news-story/461d8419ce2d8054f4f19609cc804a05

Well, well, well.

Was just about to post this. I've always questioned the functionality of most dental techniques, so this information comes as no surprise. I've gotten so many infections from regular "cleanings", and it's been proven that fillings, braces, etc. are not healthy for the rest of the body.

People who don't floss have terrible breath.

Please, floss.

Bad Wigins wrote:You are completely missing the point about the nefarious British Dental Association.

Yes, go ahead and get fillings, but the BDA will know exactly where they are.

It's a man's life in the British Dental Association.

Another point to note on this debate are biases:

Floss is a very cheap product. I don't imagine there is a major lobby for it. How much money do people who floss often spend over a lifetime for floss? There's not much money to be made, hence the scientists controlled by big business and pharma have zero motivation to do quality studies on flossing. It's almost like a natural herbal remedy. If the corporations can't patent it and make a killing on it, then they'll ignore it or try To destroy it (in the case that it detracts from more expensive, patentable solutions).

Second, I've heard a lot of stupid sh1t in my life. I had an evolutionary biology professor in an honors extra lab section who also made these foolish claims and said prehistoric people were better without floss . Of course her teeth were terrible and she had no flossing personal expedience. However other than this stumbling issue she was pretty chill and had smart insights about other matters.

Flossing is like other man made technology that improves our lives . The instinct to cleanliness and health is present in some humans, even for thousands of years. These instincts can coincide with the invention and devising of useful rituals and technologies. Today's wax floss is likely way better than anything prehistoric people could come up with . Another point: flossing is an acquired skill. It's not that easy to manipulate the string between your fingers in the crevices of your teeth. But it feels great. Jesus, The Koran, and many other major religious sources advocate cleanliness of this variety as a balancing and comforting ritual for physical, mental and spiritual health.

So just because our ancestors didn't have the tech and ability to efficiently remove garbage from between their teeth does not mean they wouldn't have wanted or would have benefitted. Some evolutionary scientist types are logic and reasoning challenged and would argue that because our ancestors didn't and couldn't floss, perhaps they didn't want to and that was the best way things could be and that our gums were "made" for rottage. But this is so stupid as to boggle the mind. You could come up with many analogies to refute that.

Flossing is not easy but even doing it once in a while is way better than never doing it.

The problem is that many scientists are obedient, factory sheep nerds existing in the hand holding hard science system and are challenged when it comes to creative individualistic and self directed independent thought, and are challenged in terms of philosophy, perspectives and logic, and thus their experimental design, data collection and conclusions are rife with flaws.

To do a proper study, you would need to have everyone on board with skills in philosophy and logic, and have a few bacteriologists/microbiologists, of the environmental/ecological/interface type.

I believe some of the benefits and harm avoidance comes from the balance and dynamics of good and bad bacteria in the oral cavity, with flows to the digestive system, cranial and facial nerves and blood vessels, and ear nose and throat tissue. Among other points to research.