> the authors of these guidelines could not find convincing evidence to support flossing, and the guidelines are supposed to be evidence-based. According to reviews of the evidence published in 2011 and 2015, there is minimal, short-term, and generally unreliable evidence that flossing might reduce gum inflammation, but no convincing evidence that it promotes plaque removal or prevents tooth decay or dental caries (cavities).
Basically, brush your teeth and you'll be fine. Europeans have great teeth, they just care less about having the great white hollywood smile, and care more about having their healthcare cover dental work.
Reread your article. There’s no evidence that “brush your teeth and you’ll be fine”. There’s no good evidence that flossing is effective because there are nearly no large randomized controlled studies of flossing. Nearly all of the studies rely on self reporting.
Flossing isn’t some kind of conspiracy. Dentists make no money off it. Many dental associations and government agencies outside of the US recommended it. Dental hygienist can frequently tell when you don’t floss because flossing reduces bleeding gums.
Bleeding gums are correlated with all kinds of poor health outcomes.
Furthermore The proposed mechanism of action for improving gum health is plausible and reasonable. We know that food stuck between teeth leads to gum inflammation—it is very reasonable that removing that food is beneficial.
There is no conclusive peer reviewed evidence that wiping your ass is beneficial either.
I suspect dentists push flossing as a way of convincing their patients that they're not doing enough, and can therefore push more services. "Well sir, if you only flossed regularly like we tell you, you wouldn't need all these regular deep cleanings!"
I'm not sure how it works in other countries, but in the US, dentists generally need to provide xray/imaging of the mouth to back up whatever diagnosis/procedures they recommend, or dental insurance will reject it.
It's only when a patient is paying fully out of pocket when a dentist would perhaps have an easier time getting a way with over-diagnosing. Even then, they can still get in trouble with the ADA since that treads closely with medical fraud.
As is the case in many parts of the healthcare industry in the US (and many other countries), for practitioners who don't care as much about the ethics of it, they'll tread as closely as they can without crossing over into outright fraud.
You think there is conspiracy at the ADA level to push a free fake treatment as a way to convince patients to pay for other expensive fake treatments?
And this conspiracy has infiltrated not only the ADA and every dental schools but dental hygienist schools and dental agencies all over the world.
Dentists are all remarkably consistent about flossing. This level of coordination would require an actual coordinated conspiracy that is massive in scale.
Countries where "flossing doesn't exist" are probably places where people have poor oral health and jacked up teeth.
I would argue that flossing is even more important than brushing teeth, since the food particles stuck between teeth are more likely to stick around and feed the bacteria that cause cavities and bad breath.
It was hard to take the rest of your comment seriously after that, and only reinforces the “europeans have bad teeth” stereotype.