Just a heads up for the studies about water flossing:
Two of them were funded by WaterPik and another is published in the “Journal of Baghdad College of Dentistry,” which looks… suspicious from my naive perspective.
A recent Cochrane Review compares toothbrushing against tooth brushing + water flossing (aka “oral irrigating”):
Very-low certainty evidence suggested oral irrigators may reduce gingivitis measured by GI at one month (SMD −0.48, 95% CI −0.89 to −0.06; 4 trials, 380 participants), but not at three or six months. Low-certainty evidence suggested that oral irrigators did not reduce bleeding sites at one month (MD −0.00, 95% CI −0.07 to 0.06; 2 trials, 126 participants) or three months, or plaque at one month (SMD −0.16, 95% CI −0.41 to 0.10; 3 trials, 235 participants), three months or six months, more than toothbrushing alone.
It also compares water flossing with regular flossing:
Low- to very low-certainty evidence suggested oral irrigation may reduce gingivitis at one month compared to flossing, but very low-certainty evidence did not suggest a difference between devices for plaque.
Thanks for sharing. Do you think there is plausible that water flossing might be actively worse than regular flossing? I ask because I find water flossing much more pleasant and less aversive, so would favour it even if the evidence suggested it was only as effective.
I have no idea, I’ve spent less than a half hour looking into this. The Cochrane Review shows that there’s maaaybe an advantage to water flossing, but there just haven’t been that many studies on it. And the studies do assume that participants are flossing/water flossing at the same frequency. If the pleasant sensation you get from water flossing motivates you to keep doing it, I think that’s great!
Thanks! I agree there isn’t definitive evidence about water vs other flossing. For me it is so much easier to do water flossing that I also would favor that if it was equal or even slightly less effective than the alternative. I think my prior is that anything that mechanically moves plaque and food particles from in between your teeth—be it water, “regular” floss, or something else—is going to work. It probably depends as much on your technique as to the underlying mechanism and so I think this would be hard to effectively study.
I like this list!
Just a heads up for the studies about water flossing:
Two of them were funded by WaterPik and another is published in the “Journal of Baghdad College of Dentistry,” which looks… suspicious from my naive perspective.
A recent Cochrane Review compares toothbrushing against tooth brushing + water flossing (aka “oral irrigating”):
It also compares water flossing with regular flossing:
Thanks for sharing. Do you think there is plausible that water flossing might be actively worse than regular flossing? I ask because I find water flossing much more pleasant and less aversive, so would favour it even if the evidence suggested it was only as effective.
I have no idea, I’ve spent less than a half hour looking into this. The Cochrane Review shows that there’s maaaybe an advantage to water flossing, but there just haven’t been that many studies on it. And the studies do assume that participants are flossing/water flossing at the same frequency. If the pleasant sensation you get from water flossing motivates you to keep doing it, I think that’s great!
Thanks! I agree there isn’t definitive evidence about water vs other flossing. For me it is so much easier to do water flossing that I also would favor that if it was equal or even slightly less effective than the alternative.
I think my prior is that anything that mechanically moves plaque and food particles from in between your teeth—be it water, “regular” floss, or something else—is going to work. It probably depends as much on your technique as to the underlying mechanism and so I think this would be hard to effectively study.