I still floss because I think its gross and I have bad gaps in some of my teeth, but I think flossing can also cause harms, for example some floss has PFAS in it.

https://www.consumerreports.org/toxic-chemicals-substances/d...

> Yes, flossing cannot be proven to help.

It's demonstrable that something like a bean skin, lodged in your teeth, will erode the teeth touching it.

You can say the exact same thing about eating a blank piece of paper twice a day. Pascal's wager is no way to live life.

>cannot be proven to hurt

Inserting floss between your teeth pushes them slightly apart. I wonder if that could have any negatives?

Considering orthodontic treatments, no. I imagine you could damage the connective tissues under the gums though.

>But it cannot be proven to hurt, either, so current recommendations are to do it anyway.

That's not a meaningful standard for any health intervention. If I'd apply everything to my body that wasn't proven to hurt I'd spend a hundred bucks every morning and two hours in the bathroom. If "it doesn't hurt" was sufficient basis for a recommendation our doctors would tell us to swallow homeopathic medicine every morning.

It seems pretty obvious that anything you apply has to have at least some measurable impact, otherwise you're basically in the same category as the supplement industry.

I'm inclined to believe that preventing food particles from rotting between my teeth is a measurable impact in itself, regardless of whether it directly impacts my health.

Your assumption is that the floss is removing something that brushing does not. Ask your dentist why you should floss and the answer is not removing occasional lodged pieces of food from between your teeth, but cleaning under the gum line. There is no evidence to suggest it works that way, this is what the long term studies have determined.

So by that rationale, after a thorough brush, flossing would never remove anything?

plaque and food under gum line

Cannot be proven to help if you don't mind your organic matter decomposing in your mouth.

Presumably you brush your teeth. The studies on floss usage do not start with a baseline of doing nothing at all.