Still, the federal government, dental organizations and manufacturers of floss have pushed the practice for decades.
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The move comes amid a debate over whether flossing actually works.
“Floss is important. It helps get in the gums, keep your gums healthy especially for kids because they’re always eating candy, junk food and who knows what else they’re eating half the time”, Jason Adams of Scranton said.
Dr. Cathy Cook, a local dentist, has been recommending her patients floss for 18 years. The guidelines must be based on scientific evidence, under the law.
But past year, when the AP asked the US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Agriculture to provide scientific evidence to support the recommendation, the agencies admitted that the benefits of flossing have never been adequately studied in rigorous scientific experiments. The findings? The evidence for flossing is “weak, very unreliable”, of “very low” quality, and carries “a moderate to large potential for bias”.
“The majority of available studies fail to demonstrate that flossing is generally effective in plaque removal”, said one review conducted previous year.
The American Dental Association recommends brushing twice a day and cleaning between teeth with floss once a day.
“Dentists over time have seen that their patients who floss regularly can prevent periodontal disease and those who have periodontal disease can have an improvement in their condition when they floss, but the studies don’t bear that out”, she said.
“You know there are no long term studies on it”.
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Representatives of the American Dental Association and the American Academy of Periodontology (AAP) acknowledged the weakness of published evidence pointing to flossing’s benefits, but they largely stuck to their existing advice. I’ve made it my entire life and I’ve never even had a cavity.
