After oral hygiene, the bacterial biofilm immediately starts to form.

With time, more anaerobic gram-negative bacteria appear, depicted as the rod-shaped, blue bacteria.

When we eat food, the bacteria convert food nutrients into energy and byproducts through metabolic activity.

Here we see a gram negative bacteria absorbing a food nutrient and metabolizing it.

One of the byproducts of bacterial metabolism is the production of inflammatory toxins depicted here as the yellow balls.

The inflammatory toxin load is a result of both the number of bacteria present and the amount of inflammatory toxins being produced.

These inflammatory toxins are a strong contributor to the inflammation and bleeding associated with gingivitis.

This video depicts the action of stannous fluoride in reducing gingivitis.

Stannous fluoride interacts with plaque biofilm and kills some bacteria.

Additionally, the remaining bacteria have difficulty metabolizing nutrients from our daily diet.

This represents stannous fluoride inhibiting the metabolic processes of the bacteria.

As a result, fewer inflammatory toxins are produced as metabolic byproducts.

The overall load of inflammatory toxins has been reduced by both decreasing the number of bacteria and reducing the production of inflammatory toxins.

The result is a reduction in the inflammation associated with gingivitis.