Eli5: Why do we brush our teeth for 2 minutes? Does this apply to electric toothbrush?
In: Biology
Because most people don’t brush for more than 10 seconds.
Most people routine is basically touch an area, give it a few scrubs and move on to the next, repeat till you touch all areas at least once then you’re done.
Which obviously doesn’t do a whole lot. So the idea of making some arbitrary time like 2 mins helps to not only reinforce the idea that you need to spend more time brushing it also doesn’t make it too heavy of a burden where people ignore it all together. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of people will ignore it all together but some will think, “Ok that’s not yet 2 mins I need to slow down and give it a bit more time.”
There’s also the idea that toothpaste can help to “remineralize” enamel. In other words, it helps to reinforce a tooth’s hardness but in order to get this working you’re supposed to leave the toothpaste in contact with the teeth for longer. I’m not sure if that was simply marketing hype or if it really does do that from a scientific basis. I tend to think it’s simply to get people to brush longer because I think most people just give it the once over and move on.
There’s also the idea that it takes time to not only kill bacteria but also get rid of all the bacteria. If you notice real doctors scrubbing for surgery, they will scrub and scrub and scrub to try and remove all the dead skin and bacteria from all parts of their hands prior to heading into surgery.
So in my mind, it’s simply to remind people to brush longer than they would usually brush.
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