Regular oral hygiene is a decent predictor of oral health. However this does not explain why the incidence of caries and irreversible gum disease are so high. Almost half of all Americans have some form of gum disease, which we can predict using the oral microbiome, which are the same people that regularly see a dentist and have “normal” hygiene habits.

Let’s stop normalizing reactive medicine and start thinking about personalized preventive approaches to health. There is no one size fits all approach to your systemic health, and the same applies to oral health.