Sawbones: Oil Pulling

Oil pulling originates from the Charaka Samhita — but the ancient version used ghee, not coconut oil

Sydney McElroy reads from the original Ayurvedic text, which describes oil gargling with ghee to strengthen jaws and voice, prevent dryness of throat and tooth cavities, and make teeth firm-rooted. The practice was part of a broader daily hygiene routine including tooth brushing and tongue scraping.

"Oil gargle. It provides strength in jaws and voice, development of face, maximum taste and relish in food. One does not suffer from dryness of throat, lip cracking, tooth cavities, pain in teeth, oversensitivity of teeth on taking sour taste."

Studies show oil pulling reduces bacteria, but research quality is poor — small samples and biased authors

Sydney reviews the scientific literature and finds some studies showing reduced bacterial colony counts after oil pulling, but notes major limitations including very small sample sizes of 10-20 people, studies only on adolescents with poor baseline hygiene, and strong researcher bias in favor of oil pulling.

"A lot of the studies that I looked at are very small, have an end of like 10 or 20, so 10 or 20 people that were checking. So 10 people used oil pulling, 10 people use mouthwash, what's the difference. That's tough to be statistically significant and really see differences at that level, that's really hard."

Bottom line — probably a decent mouthwash alternative if you already brush and floss

Sydney's takeaway is that oil pulling is probably better than nothing and could serve as a natural mouthwash alternative, but adding it to an already good brushing and flossing routine likely adds nothing. She finds no evidence for systemic health claims and notes a small risk of lipoid pneumonia from aspirating oil during long swishing sessions.

"And they're written that way. I mean, you can there's a lot of subjective, you know, information in them. There's a lot of we don't write flowery in science. We don't say things like now this is proven to be a viable alternative to chemicals and things like that i mean we don't use that kind of that's the kind of thing you see in commercials so if you're reading that in a study i'd raise an eyebrow it does sound like though that like if you maybe were somebody who are who's already brushing and flossing and didn't like like the super stringent or astringent uh mouthwashes that are that are that do feel very chemically uh that this is a pretty decent natural alternative i think that that's a fair thing to say. A lot of people have have made the point at the end of all of you know kind of their synthesis of the data that I have done I would arrive at the same conclusion which is that it's probably better than nothing and if you're already blush brushing and flossing it probably can't hurt. You know if you want to add it to your routine or replace your mouth washing routine. I don't know a lot of people who are that good that they brush floss and use mouthwash every day. So if you're already at that level, I don't think replacing it with oil is going to hurt you. No, your game is already elevated. Don't let us sit here and tell you how to clean your mouth because you are a professional. Exactly. But I will say this. all those other claims, you know, HIV and PMS and heart disease and all that crap that they say that it's going to fix. I didn't find anything to support that. There's a lot of theorizing in these studies that, hey, if we reduce the bacteria in your mouth, it restores your oral health and that this is part of your whole healthy balance. And so holistically, it's going to affect the rest of your body. So everything else gets better."