Why Floss?

No, not the dance from Fortnite. You know, flossing your teeth with string. Getting into the cracks and crevices within your teeth to remove food particles that are too lodged in there for your to pick out with your fingernails.

There’s been some debate as to the “need” to floss over the years, and a lot of that stems from (or used to stem from) a lack of research on the topic. Or rather, there was a lack of conclusive evidence that flossing helps your overall dental health.

So let’s clear something up right here and now: Of course it helps your dental health. I mean, you’re literally removing particles of food from your teeth that your toothbrush can’t reach. And we all know that any little bits of food leftover in your mouth eventually are broken down into sugars that can begin to eat away at your enamel and develop into dental carries. Who wants that to happen?

So, despite there being “inconclusive evidence” on this research (which I’m not too sure I’ve even heard lately), it’s pretty straightforward that flossing helps to avoid cavities more than it is useless to do at all. I mean, think about all the dentists out there that recommend flossing daily? Do you think they’re telling you to do that for no reason at all? Of course not!

The soundest advice you’ll ever receive is that from your dentists right there: floss once a day, and you should be fine. Forget to do it one day? You’ll be alright. Do it the next morning and get back on your daily routine. That’s all there is to it.

So, anytime you hear someone going around spouting that flossing is useless, let them know it’s absolutely not useless. At the very least, it can help to avoid some cavities down the road. So, even if you don’t floss much and attempt to from time to time, it only helps to supplement your daily brushing routine. It certainly can’t harm you to floss, so getting a few flosses in during a weekly period? Yeah, it’s going to be better than if you hadn’t.

Just avoid hearsay and myths like this, if you can. Flossing isn’t bad for you, and if there is little difference in doing it or not, you’ll at least be on the “winning” end of things once definitive research has come out explaining the benefits of flossing.