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Flossing teeth was one of the most important oral health care practices recommended by dentists. However, study shows that flossing does not help that much and might cause more problems in the long run.
According to medical literature, floss can cause bad bacteria to go through the bloodstream that may cause infections especially to those people with weak immune system. Careless flossing can damage the teeth, gums and dental work. A new research also said that most of the available studies cannot demonstrate that flossing is really effective in removing plaque, as reported by Telegraph.
A two-week study was conducted by Procter & Gamble - a company that markets different brands of floss - to prove that floss fights common mouth problems. But, it was later called irrelevant by a research review.
The US Department for Health and Human Services and Agriculture said in a letter that benefits of flossing had never been studied properly. Professor Damien Walmsley, a British dentist at the University of Birmingham also stated that the evidence which suggests that flossing is beneficial is weak.
On the other hand, American Dental Association (ADA) firmly stated that flossing is an essential part of oral hygiene. It also said that flossing cleans the areas of the teeth where toothbrush cannot reach. However, according to AP, the studies that are supporting the ADA's claim are old and the survey was done to a small number of people, BBC reported.
Other studies that were conducted in the past 10 years said that the evidence found that supports flossing were very low quality, unreliable, and there was a moderate to large potential for bias. "The difficulty is trying to get good evidence. People are different and large studies are costly to do... until then you can't really say yes or no," said Walmsley.
Meanwhile, Tim Iafolla, a dentist from the US National Institutes of Health said that when purely looking at the science, dropping the floss guidelines would be appropriate. However, he also said that people should still floss. He also said that flossing is low risk and low cost and it possibly works, so they are still comfortable telling people to do it.
