Flossing: The Missing Link in Your Health Journey

Could skipping a simple two-minute habit be taking years off your life? The alarming truth is that 80% of Americans have some form of gum disease—coincidentally, the same percentage who don't floss regularly. This isn't just about cavities or bad breath—it's potentially life-threatening.

When your gums bleed during flossing, it's not a signal to stop; it's your body's desperate plea for more consistent care. Bacteria nestled beneath your gumline produce toxins that silently destroy bone and teeth, creating communities that thrive when left undisturbed. These aren't just causing local damage—researchers at NYU Langone Health have linked specific oral bacteria found in periodontal disease with an elevated risk of head and neck cancer by driving inflammation and altering immune responses.

The consequences of neglecting oral health are staggering. Patients who lose all their teeth automatically lose five to six years of life expectancy because they can't properly break down nutrients. Beyond physical health, tooth loss profoundly impacts confidence and quality of life. This April, during Oral Cancer Awareness Month, we're highlighting these connections while sharing surprising protective factors—a recent study suggests drinking four or more cups of coffee daily may reduce head and neck cancer risk by 17%, with tea offering similar benefits through natural compounds that inhibit harmful bacteria.

Daily flossing is more than a dental recommendation—it's a simple act of self-preservation. Two minutes that could literally add years to your life. When was the last time you flossed? Your future self is begging you to make tonight the start of a life-saving habit.

Chapters

• 1:13 Flossing and Periodontal Disease
• 2:22 Daily Flossing Discipline
• 4:59 Oral Cancer Awareness Month
• 8:14 Tea and Coffee Cancer Benefits
• 9:44 Final Reminder to Brush and Floss

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

oral health care spotlight. Tonight in our oral health spotlight is flossing and periodontal disease. Did you know that 80 of americans have some form of gum disease? But flossing can help to prevent this, but most people won't floss. It's like 80% of people have some type of gum disease, but 80% of people also don't floss. Is this a myth or no?

Speaker 1: 1:12

So bleeding gums means you need to floss more, not less. True, floss, how do you feel? So bleeding gums means you need to floss more, not less. This is true. You need to probably floss more, unless you're on some type of blood thinner where, if you're flossing too hard and you're bleeding or something, you still need to floss. But so a lot of patients feel like, damn, and I floss, my gums bleeding, so I stopped. It's like actually that means you need to continue flossing. You need to floss every day, not less, because nine times out of ten, this is some type of bacteria that is embedded under your gum line. They are producing toxins from the acidic environment that you are creating and then you're not brushing things away and they are destroying your bone. They're destroying your teeth and if you don't floss, this allows them to build the communities on your teeth and start little families and then this is trouble. So this is why you want to floss so that you don't contribute to your own demise, you don't contribute to having periodontal disease.

Speaker 1: 2:26

Flossing is a dental version of daily discipline. This is something that we need to do every single day. I can guarantee, if this is something that you put on your 365 day consistency challenge, a lot of people would fail because it's. Even though it only takes two minutes, unlike me saying, okay, I'm gonna go live on twitch for an hour some people will find that easier than flossing every day because it's just not taught. It's not taught in school, it's not taught in a lot of homes.

Speaker 1: 2:56

A lot of people just don't know people who grew up in poverty, like myself. We just never heard about flossing. Even when I learned about brushing my teeth in elementary school, they really didn't discuss flossing. Like I have a good, pretty good memory. Maybe they did, but I just remember them saying brushing in circles. You know, that's the one thing that I picked up, and flossing wasn't really talked about much. It's just not really talked about much, if I can say so.

Speaker 1: 3:27

So it is one of those things that is highly preventable. It's highly authoritative when it comes to helping you decrease your risk of getting periodontal disease, bone loss and ultimately, tooth loss, which can happen. Tooth mobility, your teeth start moving out and then yeah, then you need other things to replace your teeth. Edentulous patients lose five to six years of life automatically because they can't really break down the nutrients when they're eating and their body works a little bit harder. So it takes away life from you. Okay, it takes away the life, it takes away the motivation, the creativity. All that Because now teeth are an essential part of who you are, your confidence, your self-awareness. April is Oral awareness month.

Speaker 1: 4:23

Certain oral bacteria linked to increased risk of head and neck cancer. So certain bacteria in your mouth, in my mouth, can be linked to an increased risk of head and neck cancer. Especially if you have a lot of this type of bacteria in your mouth because you're not flossing, brushing, taking care of infections and cavities and things like that, you allow these bacteria to just destroy everything, girl, everything. Everything. They gonna destroy everything. Okay, so the researchers at NYU Langone Health have connected certain bacteria linked to gum disease with an elevated risk of head and neck cancer. Okay, the researchers identify higher level, higher levels of Fuso bacterium nucleatum, a type of bacteria often found in periodontal disease, f nucleatum in cancer patients. This finding suggests that the bacteria may contribute to cancer development by driving inflammation and altering immune system responses. Inflammation and altering immune system responses it offers. Well, this research offers new insight into how oral health might influence cancer risk, potentially paving the way for novel approaches to prevention and treatment by targeting these oral bacteria to help reduce the risk of cancer.

Speaker 1: 5:56

So there are certain tests that we can do, um, as dentists, to kind of like triage what type of bacteria you have in your mouth. And this study would kind of help. If you want to see if somebody has a higher risk of oral cancer or if they have like a suspicious lesion, you can test the bacteria in the mouth. Or if you're just testing the mouth and you notice this type of bacteria, you know this is going to increase their risk of head and neck cancer. So you want to kind of decrease that bacterial load. Maybe put them on some type of perio trays to wear so that they can decrease the risk of getting oral cancer, because oral cancer is aggressive.

Speaker 1: 6:39

That's why I do oral cancer screenings. If you come to me, 10 times out of 10, I'm going to do an oral cancer screening at your periodic exam, checking your lymph nodes, checking your submandibular glands, checking under your tongue, just checking the whole entire oral cavity for any suspicious lesions and to make sure that we pay attention to those. Or do further investigations to make sure that it's not oral cancer. Because it's better to spot these things earlier than later, because I have had several patients come into the office with oral cancer and it is a very aggressive disease. Sometimes you lose your tongue, you lose your throat, you may be in a feeding tube, it's, it's in this area, so it's really a traumatic thing. So we want to be aware of this and this is oral cancer awareness month, guys.

Speaker 1: 7:32

The next study that we're going to talk about is tea and coffee may cut cancer risk. What I've been trying to preach to my patients to stop drinking so much coffee because it stains your teeth, caffeine, it increases your blood pressure and, yeah, it has other things that aren't so great. But this study is saying tea and coffee may cut cancer risk. That's what it said, don't shoot the messenger.

Speaker 1: 8:04

It says a new study published in the journal Cancer suggests that drinking tea and coffee may reduce the risk of developing head and neck cancer. According to the team, people who drink more than four cups of caffeinated coffee a day had 17% lower odds of having head and neck cancer overall, 30% lower odds of having cancer of the oral cavity and 20% lower odds of having throat cancer. The study even found that decaffeinated coffee has some beneficial effects. So they're saying coffee and tea might lower your risk of cancer. They have a lot of natural properties in these Both of these tea and coffee that probably inhibit the growth of that bacteria that we were talking about earlier. That is linked to periodontal disease, so some type of way it may inhibit or slow the growth of those cancer causing properties. To remind you guys, before you go to bed tonight, to brush and floss your teeth, please, and thank you.