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Comment by ramraj07 | Hacker News Reader

While we’re discussing mouthwash can we also discuss flossing? It really does seem like a stupid exercise, and once you do it once, you have to do it everyday forever . I’ve never flossed in my life and consider myself blessed that my parents didn’t force this on me before I could make my own choices.

Also I’ve never had to go to a dentist for anything other than a checkup before flying off to another country, and my diet is the absolute opposite of what anyone would consider healthy so there’s that.

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Well, this might be why a) it’s better if we guide behaviour based on large amounts of data rather than anecdotes, and we should b) probably trust experts (within reason).

My contrasting anecdata is that I was brought up with relatively poor dental hygiene standards and candy as a regular treat. Maybe there are other differences between us as well (are some teeth just better, stronger?) but I’ve got teeth with lots of fillings - and based on location, some decay seems obviously directly related to not having regularly flossed.

So, I wish I’d been taught better behaviours including flossing when I was young, and hadn’t had my brain’s reward centres quite so attuned to sugar.

I didn’t recommend not to floss based on just my experience, I merely brought it up as a hypothesis that might be worth considering.

If you want more data to take this point as well: most Indians don’t floss. The dentists here don’t recommend it either but importantly I don’t see more dental hygiene issues here than in other places.

Also I didn’t say I didn’t take care of my teeth, I’m just suggesting we consider maybe brushing your teeth very well might be more than sufficient.

Once you do it once, you have to do it forever?

My hypothesis is that flossing is the act that actually creates the gaps that you need to now keep clean by flossing forever. If you never floss, but just brush well and hard, you don’t have that big of gaps between your teeth. This is just my hypothesis of course, but perhaps it attacks everyone in their belief that they are doing well informed things first thing in the morning, no one wants to even entertain the possibility.

No, let's not discuss flossing. Maybe we could look at the literature and conclude something other than "periodontal health significantly benefits from flossing," but this anecdote is not particularly scientific and could be harmful to health.

Can you please cite said literature? You know peer reviewed studies that show proof flossing is very important?

The only recent study of any meaningful size I’ve found is this: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcpe.12765 and this can also only show a 17% reduction in periodontitis if you floss a couple times a week. Even when compared within the American population (which I posit has flossed at least once in their lifetime for the most part), there’s vanishingly little benefit in reducing an arguably non life threatening condition and that requires you to annoy yourself every day of your life.

I’ll wait for you to show any studies before I make more judgements.

Importantly my hypothesis is more nuanced and hinges on the fact of “never having flossed”. I haven’t come across a study that looks at this aspect and would love to see what such a study would say.

You can tie floss into a loop. It's way better than strangling your fingers and faster too. Look at the last picture in the first post of this thread: https://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=2013.15

You grab and twist a doubled-up line, then pull the small end through the new hole. This takes just a few seconds and now I don't mind flossing daily.

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