Flossing Without Flossing?

Plus: how to find out your CVD & stroke risk

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The 10almonds Team
October 29, 2023

Today’s almonds have been activated by:

❝We should take wandering outdoor walkins, so that the mind might be nourished and refreshed by the open air and deep breathing❞

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⏰ IN A RUSH?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

  • Flossing (in the widest sense of the word) is important for avoiding periodontal (e.g. gum) disease, but of the various interdental cleaning methods, using actual floss ranks joint worst (alongside toothpicks) in terms of outcomes

    • Better methods are water jet devices, or if you prefer to stay low-tech, interdental brushes

  • Regular screenings are a critical part of maintaining good health, especially as we get older.

    • Today’s sponsor, Life Line Screening, will check your personal risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and more.

Read on to learn about these things and more…

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👀 WATCH AND LEARN

Natural Mobility and Pain relief with the Resting Squat (4:36)

Make the "resting squat" one of your go-to resting positions. But, make sure your posture is correct when you do:

Want to watch, but not right now? Bookmark it for later 🔖

🦷 MAIN FEATURE

Flossing Without Flossing?

You almost certainly brush your teeth. You might use mouthwash. A lot of people floss for three weeks at a time, often in January.

There are a lot of options for oral hygiene; variations of the above, and many alternatives too. This is a big topic, so rather than try to squeeze it all in one, this will be a several-part series.

How important is flossing?

Interdental cleaning is indeed pretty important, even though it may not have the heart health benefits that have been widely advertised:

However! The health of our gums is very important in and of itself, especially as we get older:

But! It helps to avoid periodontal (e.g. gum) disease, not dental caries:

And! Most certainly it can help avoid a stack of other diseases:

…so in short, if you’d like to have happy healthy teeth and gums, flossing is an important adjunct, and/but not a one-stop panacea.

Is it better to floss before or after brushing?

As you prefer. A team of scientists led by Dr. Claudia Silva studied this, and found that there was “no statistical difference between brush-floss and floss-brush”:

Flossing is tedious. How do we floss without flossing?

This is (mostly) about water-flossing! Which does for old-style floss what sonic toothbrushes to for old-style manual toothbrushes.

If you’re unfamiliar, it means using a device that basically power-washes your teeth, but with a very narrow high-pressure jet of water.

Do they work? Yes:

As for how it stacks up against traditional flossing, Liang et al. found:

❝In our previous single-outcome analysis, we concluded that interdental brushes and water jet devices rank highest for reducing gingival inflammation while toothpick and flossing rank last.

In this multioutcome Bayesian network meta-analysis with equal weight on gingival inflammation and bleeding-on-probing, the surface under the cumulative ranking curve was 0.87 for water jet devices and 0.85 for interdental brushes.

Water jet devices and interdental brushes remained the two best devices across different sets of weightings for the gingival inflammation and bleeding-on-probing. ❞

You may be wondering how safe it is if you have had dental work done, and, it appears to be quite safe, for example:

Want to try water-flossing?

Here are some examples on Amazon:

Bonus: if you haven’t tried interdental brushes, here’s an example for that 😎

Enjoy!

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❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE

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(The screening methods involve a combination of EKG readings and a variety of ultrasound scans)

If you want, they can also screen for most other chronic diseases; that’s on a “per item” basis. But the above is a special package deal!

Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

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🌎 AROUND THE WEB

What’s happening in the health world…

More to come tomorrow!

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

Awakening Your Ikigai: How the Japanese Wake Up to Joy and Purpose Every Day – by Dr. Ken Mogi

It's been well-established in supercentenarian studies that one of the key factors beyond diet or exercise or suchlike (important as those things definitely are), is having a purpose to one's life.

Neuroscientist Dr. Ken Mogi explains in this very easy-to-read book, how we can bring ikigai into our lives.

From noticing the details of the small things in life, to reorienting one's life around what's most truly most important to us, Dr. Mogi gives us not just a "this is ikigai" exposé, but rather, a practical and readily applicable how-to guide.

Bottom line: if you've so far been putting off ikigai as "I'll get to that", the time to start is today.

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May this weekend bring you plenty to smile about,

The 10almonds Team