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Dental Practices and Flossing: Fall from Grace or False Alarm?

Posted by Joe Gargiulo | Fri, Sep 02, 2016 @ 01:00 PM

dental practices and dental flossingRegular readers of this blog take note: August 2, 2016 was the day that flossing — the long-established bastion of dental hygiene — was discredited, disproven and sent packing to a humble retreat in Wyoming where it would spend the rest of its days in infamy. Or was it? Dental practices everywhere struggled to find answers.

The Associated Press fired this salvo, “Medical Benefits of Dental Floss Unproven,” after conducting its own analysis of research studies.

A quote from the AP’s announcement article on the debunking:

“Last year, the Associated Press asked the departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture for their evidence, and followed up with written requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

“When the federal government issued its latest dietary guidelines this year, the flossing recommendation had been removed, without notice. In a letter to the AP, the government acknowledged the effectiveness of flossing had never been researched, as required.”

A Study About Studies

The article continued with an explanation of its analysis:

“The AP looked at the most rigorous research conducted over the past decade, focusing on 25 studies that generally compared the use of a toothbrush with the combination of toothbrushes and floss. The findings? The evidence for flossing is ‘weak, very unreliable, of ‘very low’ quality, and carries ‘a moderate to large potential for bias.’”

Continuing, the article mentioned that the American Dental Association and the American Academy of Periodontology “cited other studies as proof of their claims that flossing prevents buildup of gunk known as plaque, early gum inflammation called gingivitis, and tooth decay. However, most of these studies used outdated methods or tested few people.”

The remainder of the article presented expert testimony from both sides of the argument, but gives no quarter to its relentless indictment of flossing.

Flossing is Passé: Fact or Panic?

Three things come to mind at this juncture and none is scientific in the least bit, though they do offer common-sense reasoning.

The first concerns the obvious: flossing removes an incredible amount of debris harboring harmful bacteria.

The next one concerns the patients involved in the dental floss studies who may have been telling researchers what they wanted to hear. (We recently curated a survey about 25% of patients lying to their dentists about flossing. Imagine that.)

The third concerns something I learned in a Communications Theory and Research course at Sonoma State University. Students read the original research independently, followed by classroom discussion and testing — pretty dry stuff, I might add. One report that comes to mind was The Invasion from Mars: a study in Psychological Panic by Dr. Cantril of Princeton University about the effects on those listening to the live radio broadcast of War of the Worlds in 1938.

“Long before the broadcast had ended, people all over the United States were praying, crying, fleeing frantically to escape death from the Martians,” states the study. Listeners were obviously duped.

Final Words on Flossing Study

My take-away from the communications course was that there are often 75 or more studies about any given topic. Sometimes the findings are split; other times it is more like 70 studies in favor of a theory and five against. Rarely are they unanimous. Even today, my stock response to any given study is: “Well … what did the other 70 studies say?”

In the flossing analysis, the AP only looked at 25 studies. Thus, I believe the book on flossing is wide open to future research and I look to forward to the results.

In the spirit of an open dialogue, we are interested in hearing from dental practices via the below comments section. Professional opinions on this subject certainly matter.

Finally, if it turns out that you have patients struggling to pay their dental bills (due to not flossing, of course), CrossCheck has a service allowing them to pay their balance over a 30-day period with up to four separate checks. It’s not financing and the dental practice is guaranteed its money. Learn more about Multiple Check by downloading our free guide.

Multiple Check Insider's Guide

Topics: Dentists

Written by Joe Gargiulo

Marketing Specialist Joe Gargiulo has 25-plus years in marketing, communications and copy writing. As a writer, he enjoys connecting story leads to all aspects of the human experience.