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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

I’ve flirted with conspiracy-like thoughts on the dental industry and how they might be “confidently wrong” about things the way the rest of the medical industry famously has been on numerous topics over the centuries.

I wondered (with absolutely no basis in fact) things like, “maybe the calcified tartar forms a barrier?”

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Man I hate this line of thought because I completely fall into it too, haha. For a really, really long period of life, I had just awful dental hygiene practices. Honestly don't even want to describe it because it makes me a little disgusted with myself (ironically, in a way). But, I also never had dental issues. Ate whatever, drank whatever, didn't care.

Then a few years ago I get my shit together more and start a daily routine. A few months in, I finally visit a dentist for, I swear, the first time in a decade. I'm expecting them to find the motherload of disease in there, but nope. They tell me everything looks fine, except for a tiny bit of gingivitis. Take some x-rays and I'm on my way. 6 months later, worst head pain of my life turns out to be a deep one that needs a root canal. Now I've got a bunch of fillings, a crown, etc.

I still brush daily and my mouth feels like shit if I go without for a few days. I know in all logical ways, it's just a string of luck and coincidence. But damn does the conspiracy part of the brain start spinning up on my anecdotal experiences... lol.

I haven't had any cavity in over a decade. However, there is a Huge hole on top a molar about which I am worried. But the dentist always says it is not a problem.

Maybe a feature like that one can turn into a bad cavity when dental hygiene is abandoned for a short time?. I hope I don't find out!

I'm pretty convinced that fluoride is not needed in water or toothpaste. My family of four uses reverse osmosis to remove fluoride from tap, and have used fluoride-free toothpaste for the last 10 years. We all have impeccable dental health despite regular sugar in our diets, but we do practice strict flossing and brushing.

There's actually a lot of evidence that you're right. But only in places where flouride toothpaste use is high. It seems it mostly makes a difference in areas where use of flouride toothpaste isn't widespread. In areas where it is, the risk of dental flourosis (though a relatively small risk) seems to outweigh the potential benefits

Whatever the case is nano-hydroxyapatite is quietly becoming available on the US market and kids can safely swallow it so they don't develop fluorosis like I did which never goes away for the rest of your life

I actually had a dentist tell me this recently after a clean. That the only "good" thing about calcified tartar is that is does form a barrier.

But that we should prevent it accumulating in the first place and causing tooth damage.

This sounds similar to how not all biofilms are cariogenic and can actually play a lot of beneficial roles. We have a lot of evidence[0] that in the past we had a much more commensal microbiome but the shift to a more cariogenic one was actually rather recent. I feel like it's very likely that our oral microbiomes simply haven't had enough time to adapt to the massive shift in modern lifestyles and diet but used to play a mostly beneficial role in our health, much like our gut microbiome did. I mean just look at Google Pics of the teeth of wild monkeys and apes. Pearly whites! No dentist needed

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3996550/

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