RE: Is there any evidence that dental powders improve dental health?

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Thu, 21 May 2026 10:56:54 GMT

[quote userid="3685" url="~/f/clinical-questions/31367/is-there-any-evidence-that-dental-powders-improve-dental-health"]Presumably the concern is still what’s going on under the gum line rather than how sparkly the teeth look?[/quote]

In a nutshell. Yes.

We all scoffed at Plaque-Off until some work by Jerzy Gawor showed that it did actually reduce plaque formation.

But the difficulty with all these things that reduce plaque – powders, additives, foods, whatever – is that it's much more difficult, scientifically, to measure and demonstrate, a significant effect on periodontal health. We don't know what percentage of plaque reduction is necessary to have any effect at all on periodontal health. 30% plaque reduction might have no effect at all. Whatever the relationship is, mathematically, I bet it's not linear. Moreover, plaque studies measure all the plaue on the crowns. Much of that plaque is of no importance to health – periodontal disease is caused by subgingival plaque (unlike humans, we have no worries about caries), so all we are really concerned with is subgingival plaque and I suppose plaque close to the gum magin – say for 1mm.

So i guess Plaque-Off (but not necessarily cheap imitations!) is useful and not to be scoffed at; it's no substitute for mechanical cleaning but it could help in those many animals where, for whatever reason, cleaning is not going to get done.

RE: Is there any evidence that dental powders improve dental health?

Robert FalconerTaylor — Thu, 21 May 2026 07:41:25 GMT

I was asked about ProDen PlaqueOff (Ascophyllum nodosum) as an alternative to dentals a few weeks ago. There are some positive studies in humans and cats/dogs - but non as I recall ran for more than a month or so. My advice was use if you want to but there is no substitute to owner-brushing AND routine dental checkups and dentals as needed. If there was a magic potion, it would be available for humans & making fortunes like GLP-1 agonists!