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Re:150 days of living and coding in a van by crispyambulance on Tuesday October 10, 2017 @11:35AM (#15442664)
Dude, you don't really want to try to do "scorched-earth" annihilation of all mouth bacteria-- or bacteria anywhere else for that matter. First, it won't work, you'll never get rid of all bacteria. Second, that's like taking the surviving bacteria "to the gym", clearing out the normal flora of bacteria, and replacing it with whatever nasties can survive your treatments.

Flossing and brushing (and some tongue scraping) is all that is necessary. Alcohol based mouthwash dehydrates the mouth a bit-- which might precipitate bad breath.

Re:150 days of living and coding in a van by harperlee on Wednesday October 11, 2017 @09:36AM (#15449597)
> that's like taking the surviving bacteria "to the gym", clearing out the normal flora of bacteria, and replacing it with whatever nasties can survive your treatments.

That argument holds for any point on the "target clean level" curve, though... for example I could use it to argue that flossing is cleaning beyond what's optimal. Not that I think it, but what is the best strategy, long term?

Re:150 days of living and coding in a van by Boothroid on Tuesday October 10, 2017 @12:34PM (#15443139)
There is research to prove that mouthwash helps also. But certainly brushing and flossing are the fundamentals. Tongue scraping is not. My partner works in this domain.