Daily Flossing Helps Prevent Disease and Adds Years to Your Life, Say American Dental Hygienists' Association Experts.

CHICAGO, June 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Daily flossing, teamed with brushing twice a day and regularly scheduled oral health care visits, has been the prescription for healthy teeth and gums offered by dental hygienists for over 80 years. But recent research linking periodontal disease to heart disease, and often life threatening conditions such as diabetes, respiratory ailments and premature, low birthweight babies has made it necessary to reiterate the importance of this preventive oral health care prescription, according to the American Dental Hygienists' Association.

ADHA President Beverly Whitford, RDH, BS, says "I encourage all of my patients to floss daily and remind family and friends that including flossing in their daily routine is one of the easiest, most important things they can put into their overall health program."

Flossing your teeth is also "one of the twelve easiest things a person can do to live longer and younger," agrees Michael Roizen, MD, head of anesthesiology at the University of Chicago. In his new book, "Real Age: Are You As Young As You Could Be?," Roizen writes that adopting certain behaviors -- like flossing -- or quitting certain behaviors -- such as smoking -- will definitively affect "how young a person can live."

Roizen further explains that incorporating an age-reducing behavior in your life -- such as flossing -- can make you look and feel up to 6.4 years younger. According to Roizen's real-age formula, flossing has one of the most dramatic affects on the aging process -- comparable to trimming seven years off a person's real age by quitting smoking, more than the five years regained by getting more exercise, and parallel to the 6.8 years recaptured by those who have regular sex in a monogamous relationship.

Roizen believes to have found a method of differentiating between an individual's chronological age and his or her "real age" based on behaviors and habits such as flossing. Employing his formula, Roizen says he's able to calculate the empirical affects of everyday behaviors on a person's aging process and in turn, interpret this information and translate it into a quantifiable age that reflects the positive and negative rewards of behaviors.

Roizen adds that only 30 percent of aging is attributable to genetics while the remaining 70 percent is due to environmental and physical behaviors that can be manipulated to one's benefit. Simply, Roizen asserts that a person's real age is significantly determined by the choices they make and not by their genes.

ADHA is the largest national organization representing the professional interests of the approximately 100,000 dental hygienists across the country. Dental hygienists are preventive oral health professionals, licensed in dental hygiene, who provide educational, clinical and therapeutic services that support total health through the promotion of optimal oral health.

If you would like more information about preventive oral health care, visit ADHA online at www.adha.org or write ADHA, 444 N. Michigan, Chicago, Illinois 60611-3999.