Oil pulling has some limited evidence supporting its use as a supplemental oral hygiene habit, but it is not a proven replacement for brushing and flossing. The American Dental Association does not recommend it, stating there are “no reliable scientific studies to show that oil pulling reduces cavities, whitens teeth or improves oral health and well-being.” That said, some smaller studies suggest it may modestly reduce plaque and certain oral bacteria, which is why the practice continues to attract interest.
What Oil Pulling Actually Involves
Oil pulling means swishing a tablespoon of oil in your mouth for 15 to 20 minutes, then spitting it out. Coconut oil, sesame oil, and sunflower oil are the most commonly used. Most practitioners do it first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, before brushing their teeth. After spitting the oil into a trash can (not the sink, where it can clog pipes), you rinse your mouth with water and brush as usual.
Twenty minutes is a long time to swish anything. Many people do it while showering or getting ready in the morning to make it more practical.
How It Supposedly Works
No one has definitively proven how oil pulling would improve oral health, but a few theories exist. The most cited is saponification: saliva contains bicarbonate ions, which are mildly alkaline. When these interact with fats in the oil, a soap-like substance forms that could help lift debris from teeth and gums, similar to how soap works on your hands.
A second theory focuses on emulsification. Vigorous swishing mixes oil with saliva, increasing the liquid’s surface area and potentially helping it reach crevices between teeth to loosen food particles and bacteria. A third theory suggests that the oil’s thick, sticky consistency coats tooth surfaces and physically prevents bacteria from attaching and forming plaque. These ideas are plausible in principle, but none has been confirmed through rigorous testing.
What the Evidence Shows
A handful of small clinical trials, mostly conducted in India, have compared oil pulling to chlorhexidine mouthwash (the clinical gold standard for killing oral bacteria). Some of these found that oil pulling reduced plaque scores and counts of certain bacteria after two to three weeks of daily use. These results sound promising, but the studies tend to have small sample sizes, short follow-up periods, and inconsistent methods, which makes it hard to draw firm conclusions.
For teeth whitening specifically, there are no controlled trials measuring objective shade changes. The whitening claims you see online are entirely anecdotal. The same is true for claims about “detoxifying” the body or curing systemic diseases. Nothing in the research supports those ideas.
Bad breath is one area where the mechanism is at least straightforward. The bacteria responsible for halitosis produce sulfur compounds like hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan. If oil pulling does reduce bacterial load in the mouth, it could temporarily improve breath. But so does any thorough rinsing, and mouthwash does it more reliably.
Where the ADA Stands
The American Dental Association’s position is clear: it does not recommend oil pulling as a dental hygiene practice. The ADA continues to recommend brushing twice a day for two minutes with fluoride toothpaste, flossing once a day, and avoiding tobacco. Their concern isn’t that oil pulling is necessarily harmful for most people, but that promoting it could lead people to skip the habits that are actually proven to prevent cavities and gum disease.
This distinction matters. If someone oil pulls for 20 minutes each morning but skips flossing, they’re likely worse off than if they had spent two of those minutes flossing instead.
Safety Risks Worth Knowing
For most healthy adults, spitting oil into a trash can after swishing it around is low-risk. But there is one serious, underappreciated danger: lipoid pneumonia. This condition occurs when oily substances are inhaled or aspirated into the lungs, triggering inflammation.
A case published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal described a man who had been swishing flaxseed oil daily for 12 years to help with dry mouth. He developed a chronic cough, and imaging revealed lung damage consistent with lipoid pneumonia caused by repeated small aspirations of oil over time. Similar cases have been reported with sesame oil. Chronic lipoid pneumonia can be asymptomatic for years or present with a persistent cough, shortness of breath, and in rare cases, chest pain or coughing up blood.
The risk is higher for people who have difficulty swallowing, a suppressed gag reflex, or conditions that make aspiration more likely. Children and elderly adults are particularly vulnerable. Swishing any liquid vigorously for 20 minutes increases the chance of accidentally inhaling small amounts, especially if you’re also talking, laughing, or distracted.
The Bottom Line on Effectiveness
Oil pulling is not useless in every sense. Swishing any liquid in your mouth for an extended period will loosen some debris and temporarily reduce bacteria. But the evidence that it outperforms regular brushing, flossing, and standard mouthwash simply doesn’t exist. The studies that do show benefits are too small and too short to change clinical recommendations.
If you enjoy the practice and use it as an addition to normal oral hygiene, the risk for most people is low. But treating it as a substitute for fluoride toothpaste and flossing is a gamble with your dental health that the current science doesn’t support.