Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Dental Hygiene

Episode Date: September 16, 2016

Do you really need to floss? Have you been taking your chew stick for granted? Dr. Sydnee and Justin explore those and other pressing questions in exploration of the history of dental hygiene. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a doin' that's lost it out. We pushed on through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines, the escalant macaque for the mouth Hello everybody and welcome to Sawbones a marital tour of Miss guided medicine. I am your co-host Justin McAroy I'm Sydney McAroy Sydney what a pleasure is to be back reporting sorry that we missed last week Yeah, we really missed you guys and we're sorry that we're running late, but my big shot husband As Hollywood J as they call him now. As he is known. It's filming a big shot TV show. That's right. Well, no seriously, I'm very proud of him

and it's going to be very funny. It's a regular TV show. Not necessarily anything big or small about it. It's just a regular size television program. I think it's, I think it's big deal. Thanks for your time. Either way, we have been very busy and very tired. Yeah, it's been like 12 hour days.

And then I have to come home and single-handedly to appear in a two-hour. Oh, yeah. That's definitely what you have to do. Some of us, I guess, did like a residency and were used to that, like maybe working, I don't know, 40 hour days and, you know, 80 hour weeks, 100-hour weeks,

whatever. But I understand that, like, the less, I don't know, tough. Tough is a good word. Among us, that it's a little more difficult for you to say. You know what? But the thing is, the thing that's inspiring to me about me is that I haven't let anything fall by the wayside. No, that's true. Every night, Justin, no matter how exhausted he is, when we, before we go to climb into bed,

to finally collapse at the end of a long day in our, in our comfortable bed, just and make sure to eat a bowl of cereal every night. Well, not every night. No, every night. Justin, make sure that the last thing he does before he goes to sleep at night is actually not only eat a bowl of cereal but watch YouTube videos of old cereal commercials

while he is eating a bowl of cereal. And then as soon as he is done, put it on his nightstand and turn off the light and roll over to fall asleep. Yes, it's a bedtime ritual. There's nothing wrong with it. Well, there's one thing wrong with it. What do you forget to do? Come on, let's be honest every night. So some nights I forget to brush my teeth afterwards. Is that what you want?

Pretty much every night. Yes, pretty much every night I forget. Part of our bedtime ritual is that Justin eats both cereal every night and then tries to roll over and go to sleep as if I won't notice. That yeah, she always does. And I tell him to go brush his teeth and then you know what he usually says, I did. Sometimes I do try that. Like maybe I blacked out.

Like you fell asleep and went back up and I was like, oh, what happened? Bretched teeth. Bretched teeth. So I said I was brushing my teeth. I didn't want to wake you. My point is that I think, although I have taken criticism on the show in the past for being a little, a little, I'm not against going to the dentist.

I just avoid, maybe avoidant of going to the dentist. I have better dental hygiene than you do. That's, I mean, you can make the argument that my visits to the dentist are the reason I'm able to maintain my free leasing. My stomach. Serial eating and non-tooth brushing. Yeah.

You even have like a really fancy toothbrush like an electric toothbrush. It's great. I feel like I get it all in one. I get it all in that morning shot. A lot of times I don't need to go back for another trip. Uh huh. That's not how that works. You also have a water pick. Yeah. That's to get between teeth instead of fossing, because I hate fossing. Right, everybody does. Yeah.

I mean, even if you do floss, I'm not saying nobody flosses. There are people who floss. Not as many who say they do, but they're out there, but nobody enjoys it. I'm just sitting here realizing this is the first, like, this is the longest conversation we've been able to have all week,

and it makes me kinda sad, but it makes me happy because we're having it. And so all bones has facilitated that, but. And you all get to be a part of it. I miss you very, in case we start just talking about other things, like, did we forget to pay any bills or whatever? That's because this is our one chance to sit down with the duck.

Also, don't worry, I got diapers. We're good. Why did you decide to harp on me about my teeth cleanliness? Because I want to talk about dental hygiene. Okay. I want to talk about flossing, but here's the story, guys. There's only so much I can say about flossing.

Like, it's a little piece of thread that you rub between your teeth. We got that one in one. There's like, I mean, you can, as you can imagine, the history of that is limited. So let's talk about some aspects of dental hygiene in general.

And everybody has been itching to hear our thoughts on, not, I mean, not just our thoughts, but everybody's thoughts on the flossing thing, right? Everybody knew that flossing maybe is not necessary. This has just come out. And so a lot of people have been tweeting and asking like, hey, we'll talk about flossing. So thank you to Melissa and Ty for sending us emails about this

and to all of you who tweeted and Facebooked and everything else. We have been cleaning our teeth for a really long time. Well, I have, Justin, not so much, but. Okay. I think you've got in your shots. Kineiform texts dating back to 3,000 BCE have descriptions of cleaning your teeth. And we have found like ancient toothpicks from Mesopotamia around the same time. You can also tell based on like skeleton, like skeletal remains, like they've seen little notches on teeth to indicate that people have tried to rub things

on them or clean them in some way. So we have evidence that people have been, which makes sense, it feels yucky when you're... Yeah, especially if it's been a while and you wake up and you have that feeling, oh, I gotta get in there. Imagine not doing that for days on end, how necessary something up there would feel.

I can't, the first thing I have to do every morning is brush my teeth. I cannot do anything. I won't even talk much until I do. And it stresses me out to no end to go to sleep with 30 teeth. Yeah. Ugh, ugh, can't handle it.

They used to think that teeth worms were the cause of decay. Why would they think that? Because it was, they saw one, and it seemed like easy enough to prove. No, one saying, you know, it seems like easy and after-proof. No, I mean, I guess if you have like cavities, you've got holes or something in your teeth, like something maybe you begin to think

like something burrowing in your teeth. I get that. That kind of thing. That's right. One of the earliest things that we think we use, that humans use to clean their teeth, was probably horse hair. They use the hairs from horses for flossing.

And then also twigs for toothpicks. So just like a twig with like a frayed end that you could kind of rub against your teeth. And they actually called them chew sticks instead of a toothbrush. And it would just be like a twig with, you know, if you chew on like a thin twig and it kind of frays, bristles out on the edge. And they would just keep chewing on it to clean between and, you know, if you chew on like a thin twig and it kind of frays, bristles out on the other side. Yeah.

And they would just keep chewing on it to clean between and, you know, the bottom of the view. That's what it is. There's like a direct line of, you can see a direct line of evolution from that to the modern truth, Rush. Exactly. And these, and these, we have found evidence of these dating back of, like I said, thousands of years, a chew stick specifically known as a miswalk, which is used throughout the Arabian

Peninsula in North Africa, and the Indian subcontinent, and Central and Southeast Asia, was usually made from a certain tree, Salvadora, Perseca, which is also known as the toothbrush tree, because of the chew stick that was made from the from the bark of the tree. The stem, I should say, not the bark, the stem. The stem and the leaves do have properties that may make them somewhat good for cleaning teeth. So there may be a little bit of, Oh, cool. Like, like a reason this was known as specifically the toothbrush tree and not just any old twig.

However, there's also a chemical and the leaves in the stem in the bark that maybe, and if you had enough of it ingested, would also kill you. Chee-yikes. Which seems like a risky choice. Like how, but yeah, it's like we're gathering Lorenzo's oil here. You're not brushing your teeth. Like, it's a nice Lorenzo's oil pull there. Thanks.

It's like, how bad do you want it? Of all the stems you could randomly choose to chew. Mm-hmm. Why that one? The first dentist in ancient Egypt was written about in the Ebers Papyrus. That was Hisi Ray. And so we know there were people whose job it was

to take care of teeth that long ago, who kind of designated it like this is, I am the first in Sydney will spend her life avoiding. That is my job. And it's also written that the Asclepius, the God of Rod fame, great Roman God, the, you know, the Rodas, the ashtoles.

Rodas, the ashtoles. Rodas, the ashtoles. Yep. Was thought to advocate cleaning your teeth as well. I don't know how or why. I mean, I guess we just said that. And so then we then he did advocate it. What do I don't know?

How do we know what the God thought? How do we know what any of this means? Oh, you're saying how we know that the God thought you should pressure me. Yeah, how do we know what's a God thought? How do we know what any of this means? Oh, you're saying how do we know that the God thought you should pressure for Christ? Yeah, how do we know it's Glepiacy? You should clean your teeth. I don't know, it's the first time anybody

has ever put words in the mouth of a God before. Why would they use it to talk about teeth? It's very strange. It was written that it's Glepiacy liked you to clean your teeth. Yeah. It was just his thing. He was just really in the clean.

It was from the first ever dentists slash profit. Like I've come down from the mountain with word from Ms. Glutblia. He wants everybody. Glutblia. Glutblia. She's really good. Could carry your teeth. He's like that judge from Ali McBeal. A reference everyone.

Oh, I from the me spending time away more time away, there's a direct line between time Justin's way versus how many episodes of Olympic beels that Sydney watches in shame. Again, I watched it the first time again, not a first time. Rewatches them. Aristotle definitely thought that teeth mattered. He advocated cleaning them. He also wrote that men have more teeth than women. Okay. It's a weird like foot He also wrote that men have more teeth than women.

Okay. It's a weird footnote. Also, we have more ladies deal with it. That's not true, right? No, I don't know why he thought that. Like it's, that seems like a pretty easy one to check your mouth on. You just count.

Hypocrity's advise cleaning your teeth with powder, like taking a powder, like a rough powder and rubbing it against your teeth. He also described different ways to pull teeth. So we knew that far back that if a tooth has gone rogue, that sometimes there's nothing left to do but remove it. And so he described different methods of like pulling them out with four seps,

or if you have a loose one that you don't want to get rid of, that you could kind of stabilize it with a wire. Yeah. Like an early kind of... Wolf. Brace is sort of thing. Yeah. Ancient toothpaste, like I mentioned, they were usually powders,

and they were usually made of powdered oxhoves or ashes or maybe burnt egg shells. Pummus was a popular choice, crushed bone, oyster shells, I mean, basically anything that would be kind of abrasive. I hear a lot of like, spearmen fluoride in there. No. Just no. Kind of gritty.

No, and I would think that you'd be really discouraged from using toothpaste after one run of like, here's some burnt eggshells that I would like you to rub on your teeth. Yeah, I don't, I think I I would like you to rub on your teeth. Yeah, I think I'd rather just keep the dirty teeth, thanks. Romans did start to add flavor to some of these toothpaste. So I don't know if mint in particular, but they did add some sort of flavorful compound sometimes that it would taste so gross.

Because I, again, never ate burnt eggshells or ox hooves, but they're not tasty, but they also use charcoal and bark. And then eventually we started to see things like ginseng and mint and salt added, so not so bad. I feel like I had salty toothpaste before, but I don't remember when. There are salty toothpaste out there. I saw the toothpaste, right?

You know what it is? It's the ones that have like baking soda. A lot of baking soda ones can be kind of salty. I guess salty vibe. Celsus. So as long as those celsus wrote about fixing fractured jaws, so we already had descriptions of like, you know, those kind of more advanced or maxillofacial surgical kind of procedures. And gold crowns date back to the atrustkins. So long time. We've been kept on taking on feed too because that seems like kind of a tricky one. Mm hmm. You should take a piece of gold and slap it on there. I figure that's how Dennis do it. I bet.

Yeah, you just you have no idea. I should I should have preface with it. Yeah, it's probably a good disclaimer now. Yeah, doctors don't know much about teeth. Your doctor might not want to admit that to you, but it's the truth. We don't learn a ton because like, Dennis have it. They got it covered. Yeah. Go to a dentist about your teeth. If it's infected, I can help you out, but most other things I'm going to tell you, you need to see a dentist. Abel cases wrote about how tartar was formed and not only that, he created a set of 14 different scrapers for your teeth, 14 different

types of scraper to use on your teeth to remove tartar. It's pretty impressive. I think it's a little excessive. It's a little troubling. He'd made 13 inadequate ones. He's like, I got to try again. No, different kinds. He used for different angles and sides. Oh, so these are like prototypes

that he was turning through, like. No, no, like here are 14 scrapers. I don't think now, Justin, you're, I'm gonna have to go to Justin on this one. I haven't been to a dentist in a really long time. Do they have 14 different tools they used to scrape your teeth? No, they just had the wood. Okay.

And much more sophisticated dentistry, I guess. They used to tell me when I was a kid that they were counting my teeth. That's inaccurate. Then I bought it, but that's like, doesn't make sense. You could just look. You know, you know, you know, fall for that. Now you're a big boy. No, I say, oh, do you mean scrape them? Nice try. I know. Now I'm an adult. As far back as the 1200s, barber surgeons were doing surgery. We've talked a lot about barber surgeons before. Of course, there was a long time in history when it was improper for a physician to cut into the human body or do any kind of surgical procedure.

Basically, we just kind of sat there and looked at humans and talked about them a lot, but didn't really do things to them. Barber surgeons would have been the ones to actually pull a tooth if they needed to be removed, especially lay barbers. So there were some barber surgeons who were a little more sophisticated, could do some more advanced procedures, but a lay barber is somebody who would like pull your teeth,

bleed you, put a leach on you, maybe do some cupping. I'm assuming also cut your hair, give you a shave. Yeah, I will. I'll go as long as you're there. I'm lay barber. I figure they can do that too. And then of course, we've talked a lot on the show about like the history of teeth pulling. I won't get into that too much, but teeth pulling, you know, barber surgeons did it, lay barbers did it, but it became quite a show after a while. Like people, it was a spectacle. People like to see teeth being pulled. So as it spread throughout Europe, a lot of It was a spectacle. People like to see teeth being pulled. So as it spread throughout Europe a lot of the times you could go see a medicine show

or just watch a traveling barber surgeon pull teeth out in front of a crowd like see how fast they could do it. No anesthesia, you wanted to do it fast. In 1498 in China, a toothbrush was invented. That is when we finally get the toothbrush. Wow. Kind of replaces the stick. Yeah, it kind of replaces the chew stick.

The original toothbrushes were made with a handle of either bone or bamboo. Let's hope not human bone, probably an animal. And then the bristles were the stiff hairs off the back of a hog's neck. Oh, okay. Ew. No, let me make sense.

Ew. They specifically liked the hogs from Northern China and Siberia, because it was so cold there, they grew really coarse hairs. Now you know that fact about hogs, you're welcome. I feel like all the disciplines are learning something about today.

I think the next time you're at a dinner party, you could make a lot of friends and become very popular. If you say, hey, you know, the hogs up in Northern China and Siberia, they grow some really coarse hairs on the back of their neck because it's so cold. If you need a toothbrush and a face. There you go. Make friends.

It took a while for this to get to Europe. In Europe, they were still using it this point. Rags with like salt or soot again, something kind of abrasive on them and rubbing those on their teeth, which that probably looked great to rub a rag with soot on it. On your teeth. Yeah, like, I guess word didn't get around the,

like the Chinese had come, kind of cracked this babbly wet open. Yeah. Yeah, there's a better way to do this. Strangely, the legend of how it got to Europe of how the toothbrush eventually arrived comes from a rag merchant. So you think somebody who probably wouldn't want you to know about the toothbrush, when you sold rags,

if those were the toothbrush of choice at the time, William Addis, and then this is the legend. In 1780, was supposedly thrown in jail for starting a riot. So he caused some sort of ruckus. He was thrown in jail. And while in there, his mouth was getting really yucky after a while, sitting and, you know, spending time in a jail cell.

Sure. He did not have access to his rags, I suppose. And so he started to get inventive. He found some bone. Yeah. He's in a jail cell. So you figure that out. Oh, yeah.

He found some bone. Maybe a passing rat had died. And he was a very patient man. He found some bristles. Either broom bristles, because he was actually inspired by a broom, he saw to do this, or it may have been a kind guard that passed him some hog hair bristles. Either way, he put them together and voila,

the toothbrush arrives in Europe. It went any way out of jail. That's weird though, because it didn't really, I mean, you have to imagine that this story is somewhat apocryphal and that he was really inspired by the toothbrushes really, I mean. You have to imagine that this story is somewhat apocryphal and that he was really inspired by the toothbrushes that, I mean, all these things eventually would have spread from China.

If he wasn't like big ups to China for keeping the toothbrushes sugar for 280 years, like anybody who's, it looked vaguely European. They were saying, hide the toothbrushes. There's a European colonel. We can't let the seeker get out. We got a whole 30 more years to turn through darling. Highton.

It is perfectly possible that this, that the inspiration for dental hygiene, the toothbrush, yeah, that they, he came upon it all on his own. It's possible. I would say that somebody whispered something to somebody at some point. For 280 years. I would say that somebody whispered something to somebody at some point. For 280 years, I mentioned that they were like fine, okay, yes. Here's what we use.

This is why our teeth look so much better than yours. He began selling them when he got out of jail. And you see this kind of rise as sugar becomes more popular. So, so too does the toothbrush. And as the design spread throughout Europe, you saw the, the bore, like, or the hog bristles begin to be replaced with things like horse hairs or even feathers sometimes just because they liked the softer feel. What was the, what's the next step of toothbrush revolution? Well, Justin, I'm going to tell you about that, first, why don't you follow me to the billing department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines, that ask you let my God before the mouth.

Well, sitting, we finally made it to the, I guess, 1700s thereabouts. And what was the next step in toothbrush engineering? Well, Justin, I know people are wondering, when are we going to start talking about flossing? We're getting there. We're getting there. We have to have a toothbrush.

Are you floss heads out there? I do. Like, just drop it. Good, good, good floss knowledge. Get to floss. First of all, in 1728, Pierre Fushard, who is also known as the father of modern dentistry. So you can trust him. He wrote the surgical dentist.

He actually told people not to brush and instead recommend cleaning your teeth with a toothpick or a sponge soaked in water and brandy, which does sound like more fun. Yeah, absolutely better than brushing your teeth. I brush my teeth every night. But you do see a highlighted importance of cleaning between your teeth at the straight. That's right. You know, a toothpick will do that for you. Did you know that power of ear was a dentist? Yes, I didn't know that actually.

Well, now you've ruined that. I think they mentioned it and fall out for. So. Oh, obviously. Yeah. That's a video game. And it's set in Boston, so. Okay.

We saw the church where the last ride. He didn't ride through the church. That was very weird. But I know the church was a false somehow. The church where he probably did some dentistry. Is that what you're saying? Or he did the one of by land too. Bestie. Yeah. Good stuff. Yeah, we did see that, honey. Remember that? Good story. Yeah, it is not great. It's not one of my best anecdotes but we saw the church where he did some stuff polar bear Boston yeah we saw cheers real cheers okay back to teeth and not boss we love Boston but that's not what the show is about right now uh polar bear was actually the first one to use dental

forensics did you know that no I didn't know that okay I went that one I about Power of Ear, please, Justin, and the church where he did the last ride thing that you said. I think, uh, didn't he do Louis-Louis? Was that Power of Ear and the Raiders? Is that them? Anyway, he identified a fallen friend on the battlefield by seeing a bridge that he knew he made for him in his mouth. He was able to use that bridge to identify that this is who this is. That's interesting. So it was the first time that we recorded using dental forensics, which is interesting. Because we commonly know that that's the thing we can do now, identify people after death by their teeth.

Right. Floss. Let's by their teeth. Right. Floss. Let's talk about floss. Finally. Floss is introduced in 1819. It's not that long ago really, and the solbone scale of time, by Levi Spear Parmley. Initially what he advised, what floss was, was a waxed silk thread to clean between your teeth. It's a fancy piece of floss.

Yeah, expensive too, I bet. Yeah, waxed silk. After this was introduced, the American Journal of Dental Science advised flossing two to three times a day. That's a lot of flossing. That seems excessive once. It's like they're trying to juice oldly by spear parmolies, pocketbook a little bit.

Like, maybe he lobbied them for that. And that seems like very prohibitive too. I think a lot of this too, you could not have just obtained easily on your own. You may have had to actually purchase from like a dental provider or someone who would actually take care of your teeth. Yeah, because it was a very specialized product, waxed silk.

Seems like I'm going to just make, right? You dip the silk and wax, you're done. Yeah, just go get some silk and then some wax and melted and... Yeah, I guess, I mean, like silk's harder. I make a lot of it. Everybody can do it. Like, you don't want to share it. No, that's true.

Well, we would probably only afford one piece of floss. We've been using it since June. That would not be advised by anyone at any health profession. I have to at least not now back then, they wouldn't have known better probably. And floss at this point kind of becomes part of routine dental care. Like it just starts to be recommended. People knew to brush, they knew to use toothpaste and also by the way there's floss. And we now see like in the late 1800s the evolution of dentistry with in 1875 the first

dental college with the university has started in 1882. We figure out that tooth decay is a result of microbes, so we start to understand the process a little bit more. In 1880s, we see toothpaste more as we know it, is finally invented. Up until then, toothpaste was usually like a liquid or a powder, and it had things like chalk and soap and charcoal in it. In the 1880s, we see like toothpaste in a tube. That's when that's finally introduced. And then as we go into the 1900s. I have to fit, you gotta feel

for whoever invented that because without specialized tools to do so, the first person to try to put toothpaste in a tube must look like quite the food. I would imagine. I'll be dinner. I said I would be a dinner when I'm done. You've been out of for three hours. I said I'm infecting.

But I mean, you know, he changed the world. Yeah, I guess. So I'll worth it. Yeah. So I guess don't give him such a hard time is what I'm saying. Yeah, that's true I'll take it easy on him. Do you think that he would lament the way that we use toothbrush toothpaste in a tube now? Because we don't squeeze from the bottom the way you are supposed to I you know what? I don't squeeze to the bottom until I think you don't really need to do that until things get dire

No, they get dire then I'll I try that, because I find it very satisfying. But I hate squeezing it to the bottom initially. I bet it wouldn't get so dire if you squeezed from the bottom from the beginning. I mean, maybe that's arguable. Anyway, in the 1900s, we see Dennis actually getting more involved with the prevention of tooth decay. Up until then, dentistry was a lot more about, like they made recommendations with things like cleaning your teeth, but it was really much more about fixing the problems after they

occurred, right? Sure. There's no money in prevention. As a family practice doctor, I take great exception to that. That's fine. You know how dentists are though, all they care about is money. Exactly. Also, to be fair, you're right, there is no money in what I do, but it's a noble cause.

That's fine, but like not Dennis. Dennis are only in there for the money. Right. All that sweet, all that sweet tooth money from the tooth fairy. You think it's a racket, right? They're in it together. Yeah, they're working collaboratively. The tooth fairy's work for, they're multiple tooth fairy's. They work for the Dennis. You can play the king Dennis, the Chief Dennis. The Chief Jerry's work for him. You can employ two fairies. It depends. You can have more two fairies depending on how much area you cover, like how much power you have. Yeah, that's a lot.

It's a conquer other Dennis rival Dennis. It's like risk. It's like risk meets non-sense. You get more two fairies at your disposal. Right. It can You get more teeth fairies that you're disposal. Right, it can. To collect teeth for you that you sell for money, I'm confused as to where the money comes. You conquer Kunchaka, and you get three new tooth fairies for every round. Anyway, in the 1900s, Dennis said,

you know what, instead of just yanking out bad teeth and trying to figure out how to face cavities, why don't we try to start getting people to take better care of their teeth so that they don't get tooth decay in the beginning? 1938 is a big move forward for the tooth brush. Dr. West miracle tooth brush is the first one sold with nylon bristles that replace the bore bristles that were still often being used.

So that makes them a lot easier to obtain. That really spread the use of the toothbrush because then everybody could buy one all the sudden. It was a lot easier to make, a lot easier to obtain. Absolutely. That really spread the use of the toothbrush because then everybody could buy one all of a sudden. It was a lot easier to make, a lot easier to buy. And also you didn't have to put pig hairs in your mouth. True. Soldiers returning from World War 2 did a huge good for dental hygiene in this country. That's it. They had really good dental hygiene overseas. That was part of the military, part of their practice was good dental hygiene. Yeah, you know, we brought down by, but I kind of think we're not there. And they may not have had those habits before they went, but when they came back, they brought

them back with them and that spread better dental hygiene throughout the country. So the military making standard issue, make sure everybody has the stuff they need to do that. Exactly. Give everybody a toothbrush. Sure. And that's, this is, World War II is also related to the spread of floss.

So up until this point, we see that waxed silk is still the mainstay floss. Well, during World War II, there were silk shortages. So we had to come, I mean, this seemed like a silly way to use silk, right, to claim between your teeth. Well, Dr. Charles Bass decided we need something different. We've got these nylon toothbrushes. What about some nylon floss?

Okay. So then we see nylon floss comes out and that becomes the new standard. And at this point, everybody has access to floss. It's a lot cheaper. It's a lot easier to buy. It's in all the stores and you can go buy yards and yards of floss at your disposal.

They're like yards and yards, right? There's like a lot of floss in there. It seems like a lot of floss in there. I've never thrown away a container to my knowledge. I just use it or sort of get tired of floss or find floss. I don't remember buying this. You got a fair way. See what I'm saying? This seems too old.

I just have trouble with lengths, feet, yards. There's a lot of it. Yeah. In the 1960s, electric toothbrushes hit the market, which Justin is a big fan of. He's getting our daughter hooked on electric toothbrushes. I was very proud of myself, the current toothbrush we have will pair to your phone

via Bluetooth and keep track of your brushing habits. And that sounds like tailor made for me. And I actually have not used the functionality yet. I felt very proud of myself. I'm proud of you too, because that's just a step too far, I think. Yeah. It's just, I mean, Close. I didn't need the guilt.

You need the bristles in the handle. I'm already feeling bad about cast 5K and my fitness pal, I don't need like a tooth brushing out, giving me crap too. One step forward for dental hygienist that I just had to mention was in 1971, they were allowed to wear pants so that they could sit down while they were working. Wow, what a big plug. Which seems like shame on us for not just making that the standard from the beginning.

Yeah. I mean, to be fair, this went along with the same, I mean, it had to do with like dress codes for genders at the time. A lot of women were dental hygienists and they were expected to wear skirts. That's ludicrous. Yes, it is all ludicrous. So thank goodness in 1971, we got a little less ludicrous. In 2003, the toothbrush was voted the number one invention Americans can't live without.

So why, okay, unless you live without. So why? Okay. Unless you're Justin. Congratulations for your teeth brush. So why is it that people are saying like, I don't need a floss now? Okay. So up until recently, your recommendations for dental hygiene, you know, a dentist would tell you that you need to blush, brush and floss your teeth regularly, right? Right.

Like, we hear that all the time. That dates back to elementary school. They're telling you to brush and floss your teeth regularly. We hear that. I mean, the candy review to elementary school. They're telling you to brush and floss your teeth regularly. We hear that like, the candy review video is that Charlie likes to watch on YouTube. That's true. The baby teeth four videos always send with and brushing and floss your teeth regularly. Exactly.

This year, Flossing was very quietly dropped from the recommendations from the dietary guidelines for Americans that are published every five years that have always historically included the recommendation to, you know, brush and floss your teeth regularly. There was no fanfare initially. They didn't announce that they were going to. There was no suggestion that this was going to happen. It wasn't highlighted.

It was just absent. Yeah, it's feeling like they're trying to pull something. And its absence has obviously made a lot of noise. This was based on the fact that the evidence for flossing absent. Yeah, it's filled with their trying to pull something. And its absence has obviously made a lot of noise. This was based on the fact that the evidence for flossing is actually very limited. So what they do when they're trying to figure out if something is actually beneficial, they can take a lot of different studies of it and do something called a meta analysis, meaning they were going to take all of these studies and put them together and kind of come up

with a consensus from them, okay? That makes sense. Okay. So they took a bunch of different studies on flossing and they couldn't find evidence based on putting all these studies together that flossing conclusively prevents tooth decay. They did initially a few years ago they did a meta analysis and suggested that maybe it decreases inflammation of the gums somewhat, but it was very difficult to tell if that was any different from just tooth brushing alone.

That, by the way, that was the meta-analysis they did this year, the most recent set were 25 studies that compared brushing to brushing and flossing, And the data was weak at best. So the guidelines from the dietary guidelines for America, the basis for those has to be evidence. They have to have evidence that says, these things we're telling you to do, we have done the studies and they prove that they're good. So what they basically said was, listen,

we don't have the evidence, we can't keep making this recommendation. That doesn't mean that it's not possible that flossing does help. It just means that so far we need, we haven't proven it. Now the American Dental Association and the American Academy of Pairdontology for Specialist and Gum Disease and implants have both said, listen, there are plenty of studies out there that maybe they weren't in this meta-analysis, but they do show that flossing prevents the buildup of plaque, it prevents gum inflammation, it prevents gingivitis,

and yes, it does prevent tooth decay. So like I said, the American Dental Association took great exception to this and said, no, no, no, no, this is not right. There is enough evidence out there. But as of now, the big conclusion is that we cannot tell you that flossing can really prevent tooth decay. So what's that? I would say keep brushing and flossing because the thing is, it's not going to hurt. And someday we may do enough studies, we may do the big, the big strong study

that will show that flossing does help. And even if it doesn't, I mean, it's gross to have food between your teeth. Yeah, that's a good point. But like, even if they did, I don't know the way science works, but like it seems to me that if they haven't find a good list of proof that it helps,

even if it does help, it can't be that much, right? Well, yes. Yeah, all right. Here's what I would do with this information. If you are someone who flosses, don't stop. Don't stop. Don't stop. If you are someone who occasionally flosses,

I would just keep occasionally flossing. When you remember, It's working for you so far. If you're someone who adamantly doesn't floss and was never going to floss and just needed something to argue with your friends that you were right and they were wrong, there you go. Folks, thank you so much for listening to our show.

We hope you've had fun. We got a lot more for you at sobboacho.com or search for us on iTunes, leave us your review or rating and recommend to show to some other folks. That's the only way that we sort of have to spread the word about it. So we're so appreciative whenever you get a chance to do that.

We have a PO box. It's PO box 54. I need to watch Virginia 25706. I want to say a few quick thank yous to some stuff that folks have sent thanks to Cory for this little war book thanks to Andy for the romance novel Sarah for her caduceus Book that's a beautiful piece Sarah runs a shop called measure twice fold once and She has carved I guess folded like

She has carved I guess folded like fold and folded design and the spine and the caduces into the book. Like the spine like the pages, the edge of the pages. And she hasn't actually damaged the text. So it's not like disrespectful, but no, it's gorgeous, though. And it's a nice centerpiece on our bookshelf. Seek it out. Brian sent us the book. He wrote, we got a wonderful letter from Peter Finch.

So thank you for that. A card from John. Got postcards from Kevin Megan and Nick. A list of some beautiful book mod drawings in Allison. Send us some Adagio T's. So thank you to everybody who did that. I don't wait. We sure appreciate it. Thanks to everybody who is a Max Funcon. Ease who is so nice to us.

And to the young lady who had sent us the book that mentioned it to me. Thank you again for sending that. And thanks to everybody. This has been a lot of fun and we we love you very much. I'm sorry, Miss, last week. That was, we will try our best not to do it again. So hang in there with us. But until next week, my name is just macaroid. I'm Sydney Macaroid. And as always, don't draw a hole in your head. Hi, are you a fan of Star Trek the next generation? Well, that's weird because it's a corny show. But my friends Ben Harrison and Adam Pranika do a lovely podcast about it.

It's called The Greatest Generation and it's on MaximumFun.org. I thought that this podcast was a bad idea, but I was wrong. Please listen to The Greatest Generation on MaximumFun.org. on MaximumFun.org.