That said, they should get more studies done.
You could also be a bad flosser, so even the study could be flawed.
I think it is quite obvious that people who floss also brush their teeth more regularly, and that is enough to give them healthier smiles.
(Regarding the benefits of flossing, I'm agnostic.)
They definitely and easily see a difference seen between those who floss and brush and those who just brush.
Also, those who use Sonicare, especially when used properly around the gumlines, also tend to have healthier mouths than those who brush with an old brush.
The one thing that can throw a wrench in this whole thing is smoking. Smokers' mouths are disgusting basically no matter what.
Point being, I love research, but I trust those who put their hands in tens of thousands of mouths more than skeptics on ArsTechnica article comments.
Uh... yes, it does. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraposition
You mean healthier teeth?
On the note of tongues, using a tongue scraper is a great way to get rid of nasty bacteria that causes bad breath and spreads to the rest of the teeth/gums. Cheap and effective.
Gist is that tongue cleaning yields less bacteria (that's one major cause of bad breath), but they still recommend both brushing and tongue cleaning since the reduction of tongue bacteria didn't reduce plaque. I never claimed that it did though.
Tongue scrapers are cheap and awesome. It's amazing what kind of disgusting stuff you'll scrape off that thing. I'll nearly guarantee you better breath unless you have some serious other problems, like periodontitis.
A second source on elderly: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16677187
"These results suggest that tongue care is essential for preventing oral disease and needs to be part of any oral care programme in elderly people."