Hospital patients do better if they brush their teeth.
More on whether AI will take over and kill all the humans.
More evidence that bureaucracy is no substitute for real markets: “There was no evidence of a differential change in thirty-day mortality among all Medicare beneficiaries with targeted conditions at high-proportion Black hospitals versus other hospitals seven years after the implementation of the [Value Based Purchasing] Program.”
Hospital patients and teeth brushing is an old red herring. Years ago researchers found a correlation between teeth brushing and hardening of the arteries. This study finds hospital patients are less likely to have pneumonia in the hospital.
I don’t buy the argument that teeth brushing has direct therapeutic benefits. Teeth brushing is a proxy for other healthy behaviors. If you don’t brush your teeth daily, you probably also have other habits that negatively effect to your long-term health.