Everything you believed about flossing is a lie

Flossing might not actually do anything.

Yeah. Let that sink in. Think back over all the years you lied guiltily to your dentist about how you definitely wiggle thin little strands of thread between your teeth every night in the name of preventing cavities and gum disease. And let the sweet, sweet vindication flow in. (Alternatively, if you are a professed flosser, despair).

Apparently the federal government has recommended Americans floss their teeth since 1979, but when recently asked by The Associated Press to provide the scientific evidence of flossing's benefits, the government quietly slipped the recommendation out of its latest dietary guidelines. When AP followed up, the government confessed that the effectiveness of flossing hasn't actually been researched to the extent that is required.

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Wayne Aldredge, president of the periodontists' group American Academy of Periodontology, agreed that the evidence of the benefits of flossing is, well, lacking. But he said there is probably no harm in keeping it up anyway: "It's like building a house and not painting two sides of it," he said. "Ultimately those two sides are going to rot away quicker."