Surprisingly little evidence for usual wisdom about teeth
Dentist here, AMABy the way:
- there is scientific evidence in dentistry just like any other branch in medicine
- there are good and bad dentists just like in any other profession
- the good ones tend to be very scientific and evidence-based (I know I am, everything I recommend and do is based on solid evidence, and I provide links to pubmed to any patient that asks for information)
- a good dentist should be able to answer any of your questions or doubts in a split second, I often draw simple sketches to explain concepts to patients
- please use your common sense: even though it might be hard to prove with 3 standard deviations that flossing makes a big difference (for all sorts of reasons that statisticians know very well, including the difficulty of tracking a large group of patients), it's pretty obvious that removing rotting food from your gums is good and leaving it there to putrefy is bad, don't you think? same goes for all the other claims...a powered toothbrush is better simply because it does more iterations per minute than a manual one...again, common sense