Dental health, explained plainly
Your mouth, without the miracle cures — including the parts where the honest answer is “the evidence is thinner than you’d think”.
Start here · The pillar guide
Your mouth is an ecosystem, not a battlefield
Hundreds of species of bacteria live in the human mouth, and the overwhelming majority of them are not your enemy. Understanding that changes what “clean” should even mean — and it is the idea every other article here rests on.
Tools
All articles →-
Tools
Who paid for the trial?
Every trial, review and guideline this site cites, with its funding statement and the authors’ declared interests quoted from the paper. Sortable, searchable, downloadable.
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Tools
Toothpaste database
One hundred toothpastes read label by label: fluoride ppm, the actives, what is not disclosed. Filter by US, UK or EU.
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Tools
Toothpaste ingredient decoder
Paste what is on the back of the tube. It works out the fluoride strength in ppm, names the job each ingredient is doing, and flags the four worth a second look.
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Tools
Bad breath: where is it coming from?
Six questions, sorted into the four places mouth odour actually comes from — and the point at which the answer is to see someone.
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Tools
Health-claim reference checker
Paste the citations from a sales page. Each is sorted by what it can be checked against — journal, agency, press release, retailer or nothing — with a link to open it.
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Tools
Free oral-health diagrams
The site’s own illustrations, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: what a label tells you, where gum disease goes, how plaque sets.
A game · ten cards a day
Marketing or evidence?
Ten claims, exactly as they appear in adverts. Swipe or tap: not supported, or backed by decent evidence? Everyone gets the same ten each day, and every verdict cites its source and links the article behind it.
Play today’s ten →A game · one fact
48 Hours
Plaque is soft and yours to brush off. Leave a spot about two days and your own saliva sets it hard into tartar, which no brush removes. Keep eight teeth clean for as many days as you can.
Play 48 Hours →A game · thirty days
Mouth garden
Your mouth is a garden of bacteria, not a battlefield. Feed it, brush it, floss the gaps, or try to nuke it clean and watch what grows back first. Keep the balance for thirty days.
Tend the garden →The topics
All articles →-
Fresh breath
What causes bad breath?
Almost always the back of the tongue — and why mints and alcohol mouthwash make it worse.
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Gum health
What causes receding gums?
Gums don't grow back, but recession can nearly always be stopped. Brushing harder is the wrong instinct.
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Whitening
Natural whitening: what works
Stain removal and bleaching are different jobs. Lemon juice and charcoal cost you enamel permanently.
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Everyday care
Hydroxyapatite toothpaste: does it actually work?
Better evidence than most fluoride-free trends, and less than the marketing implies — including who funded the trials, and who wrote the review that pooled them.
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Gum health
The early signs of gum disease
Bleeding gums are not normal. The reversible stage, and the one that permanently costs you bone.
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Sensitivity
Toothpaste for sensitive teeth
No one toothpaste is the answer. Which active works which way, what the trials measured over weeks rather than days, and who paid for them.
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Sensitivity
What causes sensitive teeth?
Enamel has no nerve; dentine does. What exposes it, why sensitivity toothpaste takes a fortnight, and the one pain pattern that means see someone now.
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Evidence
What the flossing evidence actually measured
Thirty-five trials, 3,929 adults, and not one of them measured decay between the teeth — a test that transfers to any health claim you read.
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Everyday care
Can teeth remineralise?
Early damage can reverse; a cavity cannot. Where that line falls, why frequency beats quantity, and which claims trade on blurring the two.
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Dry mouth
Dry mouth: causes and what helps
Saliva is the most underrated thing in your mouth. Why losing it accelerates decay, why the cause is usually medication, and what genuinely helps.
The review
We read the sales page so you don't have to
ProDentim is among the most heavily advertised oral probiotics, and among the most oversold. We went through the real ingredient list, the undisclosed dose split, and what happens when you check its reference list against the papers it actually cites.
Or go straight to what the filed label actually says — the supplement facts panel on file with the NIH database does not match the sales page, and we do not resolve that in either direction.
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