Maybe you can skip teeth cleaning at the dentist’s

My sister suggested I write a blog post about whether it’s necessary to get your teeth cleaned at the dentist's—a procedure called “scaling and polishing.” She tells me her 99-year-old friend—who is mentally sharp and takes good care of herself—never gets that treatment. It never occurred to me that this annual or semi-annual practice may not be necessary.

My research shows that it’s not! My go-to source for such information is Cochrane Review, an organization that searches for and collates research that meets their stringent guidelines for reliability—essentially evidence-based studies. In evaluating the studies comparing people who had the cleaning and those who didn't, they “found little or no difference” between those who had regular treatments and those who had none: “we can be confident that routine scale and polish does not significantly reduce the signs of mild gum disease…” They also found no difference between groups who had treatments twice a year and those who had treatments once a year.

As it happens, just when I got the blog suggestion from my sister, new research was published showing a possible link between gingivitis and Alzheimer’s disease! Gingivitis is a gum disease caused by the bacterium, Porphyromonas gingivalis. Researchers found an enzyme produced by these bacteria in the brains of people who had Alzheimer’s. When scientists introduced the enzyme into mice, the mice developed signs of Alzheimer’s.

Even so, since teeth cleaning doesn’t appear to have much value in preventing gingivitis, I think I might quit getting my teeth cleaned—or at least start by cutting back from semi-annual to annual cleaning. I’m already fighting the dentist over x-rays. She may fire me.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.