• H&R Moderators: VerbalTruist | cdin | Lil'LinaptkSix

Fluoride what are your views?

F1n1shed

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 12, 2008
Messages
2,296
We have all heard fluoride is good at preventing cavities. But it is in our drinking water if you live in the US. There are numerous studies proving the toxicity of it , but then there are counter arguments and its driving me nuts. Does anyone have any knowledge on the topic, I've been drinking filtered tap water for ages.

Have i drunk my self stupid with water or is this another fail conspiracy theory. The only thing that worries me is a lot of the research i read doesn't sound like its coming from nut jobs, many are credible. Someone please help !
 
The issue is controversial.

Fluoride naturally occurs in some foods, like green tea. My main problem with fluoridated water is that the fluoride used is a byproduct of industry, and they're just selling it to municipalities for profit. It's also unethical to force everyone to take a supplement without their consent.

Despite years of dental associations claiming that fluoridated water prevents cavities, the original studies used for those claims are not foolproof. Some European nations that stopped fluoridating their water have shown no change in the cavity rate. There is also overwhelming evidence that the modern rate of dental cavities is due to a decline in minerals in the diet combined with people consuming more acidic foods like sugar, meaning that diet is the #1 reason why people get cavities. However, the excuse is that education about diet is harder to enforce, so adding fluoride to water makes up for it.

There is also some unverified evidence that fluoride has an affinity for the pineal gland, causing calcification there. If that's true, then it would mean fluoride has an impact on the endocrine system, which in turn would affect human behaviour.

Most people already use fluoride toothpaste. I don't see why adding it to drinking water is necessary. I'm not sure about the claims that it makes people more docile though. I use fluoride toothpaste maybe once a week or so. I don't need it every day. Brushing, flossing, disinfecting my mouth, and consuming mineral rich foods seems to keep cavities at bay... and I did not grow up anywhere that had fluoride in the water.
 
I agree ferigner , we shouldn't be forced to drink it in our water. There are plenty of good minerals and vitamins that are naturally occurring and don't have a toxic background, why not put those in the water why specifically fluoride...
I think using fluoridated tooth paste is more than enough, along with taking other precautions when it comes to your teeth. So i guess the verdict is still out, just worries me that many other countries / continents have banned fluoride in water. Damnet USA :|
 
Osmotic filters are the best for getting rid of fluoride in your drinking water.
 
I grew up with fluoride in the water in Canada. I have never had a cavity nor have any negative effects from it.
I use fluoride toothpaste.
 
Most people already use toothpaste with fluoride, so the need for fluoridated water is questionable. If the government didn't have a monopoly on fresh water supplies, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but forcing people to consume a supplement is ethically dubious.

There are some potential health problems from excessive fluoride. Dental fluorosis is a condition in which excess fluoride causes discoloration and pitting in tooth enamel. This is not just because of fluoride added to municipal water supplies. In certain areas, the natural water supply has a very high concentration of fluoride, to the extent the defluoridation is sometimes required.
 
^ I had dental fluorosis most of my life, but then I moved to a part of the country where there's no fluoride in the water, and I stopped using fluoride toothpaste for several years. Now I don't have those white specs in my teeth.

I'm noticing that vitamin D and consuming cruciferous vegetables, along with seeds like pumpkin and sesame, has made my teeth harder than they've ever been. I haven't used fluoride toothpaste in years and my recent checkup showed no cavities. But... my friend who's a dental assistant said that growing up with fluoride makes your teeth more resilient as an adult, even if you don't use fluoride anymore. She acknowledges though that she might have been subject to dental school brainwashing.
 
White flecks is not fluorosis. You dont cure it, the enamel is effected for life. True fluorosis is a brown broken mass of affected enamel, incredibly rare and impossible to get from drinking fluoridated water at its 1 parts per million. It is typically found in communities with underground bore water supplies. I've seen many cases in remote outback communities with out added fluoride and never in major cities. In fact even a massive overdose which happens from human error would cause stomach upset first. Toothpastes only work until you rinse your mouth out, fluoride in your water (and subsequently in your bread, beer or anything else using that same water) is incorporated into your saliva a protects you throughout the day.

There is no fluoride conspiracy. It comes down to simple economics. Dentistry is expensive. It is cheaper to protect the population from tooth decay than it is to treat it. Why would governments pay for extra fluoride when they could just let toothpaste do the job? The answer is because toothpaste on its own is not good enough. Simple as that.

If you want a perfect example of how effective fluoride is you only need to study Australia. My city was the only one without fluoride in the country for 50 years. The decay rates here were 5 times the national average while interestingly the rates of cancer etc were the same. 5 yrs ago fluoride was introduced and already the decay rates have reduced to the national average. That's a city of almost 2 million. Fluoride is cheap and effective.
 
I grew up with fluoride in the water in Canada. I have never had a cavity nor have any negative effects from it.
I use fluoride toothpaste.

Ditto.

I've always chuckled at the whole "they're controlling our minds with fluoride in the tap water!!!" set. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.
 
im against fluoride in the water for all the obvious reasons.
 
I wouldn't say it's the fluoride itself that's controversial--it has proven uses and benefits--but rather the amount of it that has been put in the water. at a certain point it is detrimental, and not all of us know or have access to knowing how much is in a given city or region's water supply. while some studies have eyebrow-raising results (or "conclusions") fluoridated drinking water is pretty low down on my list of concerns ATM.
 
Of all the things to worry about flouride in wate is at the bottom of my list. Just happy we still have potable water left on earth that flows from my tap. Some places dont even have that! Tin foil hat...o-f-f
 
Some cities also have people's medications floating around in their water supply... way worse than fluoride, as it's mutating the local fish populations. It is curious how fluoride gains the most attention.
 
I'm against fluoride all together. Imagine prozac is 97% fluoride. I was super sick the entire time I on it till I found out. They say to start your kids at 2 y/o using fluoride toothpaste, I for one will not.
 
Chipping: Um, no. That's entirely incorrect. Prozac has a perfluoromethane side group, but all three fluoride moities are covalently bonded and are not released. C-F bonds are the strongest single bonds in organic compounds. L2Chemistry.

bloodshed: care to back up that statement with actual research? Note that the vast majority of fluoridation schemes no longer use sodium fluoride, but rather fluorosilicic acid or its conjugate base sodium fluorosilicicate, as they are more effectively used in enamel remineralization. Plus, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that the dose used in that video was orders of magnitude higher than in any fluoridation scheme. Also, a little primary research to read. As in: reviewed, publicly funded, non-conflicting interests.

Sorry to knock off your tinfoil hat.
 
I sometimes use Fluoride-free toothpaste, and sometimes I use toothpaste with fluoride. I know that green and black tea have fluoride but I'm not going to stop drinking them.

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/QAA22857

There are worse things besides fluoride in certain water supplies that I'd worry about more.
 
Can everyone please avoid the personal insults like accusing people of wearing tinfoil hats? Human health is a topic of great diversity with a lot of individual variation. If someone has a personal concern about fluoride then it can be addressed factually without making fun of them.

There is certainly an ethical concern about medicating the water supply with fluoride without people's consent. I don't care if it's good for me or not, I should be given the choice.
 
Top