If you are on city water in North America, chances are very good that your water is fluoridated.
While it was, and still is, hailed as a great boon to public health, ingested fluoridated water doesn’t have any proven health benefits.
The American Dental Association now advise to avoid using fluoride.
This post tells us that all benefits are to do with the outside of the tooth enamel, and the benefits can be realized by having your annual fluoride rinse at the dentist rather than drinking fluoridated water.
99% of Europe has banned fluoride in their water.
I personally choose to do without the rinse because it makes my stomach do see-saws.
In addition, if you are feeding a baby formula, you should be doing it with non-fluoridated water (read, spendy spring water) so as to avoid flouride overdose in your infant.
If you’re starting to get up in arms about this flouride business and be all like its the greatest thing ever, ask yourself how rural residents get by without the stuff in their water. They do. Quite regularly. Well water is not fluoridated, neither is lake water. And chances are those folks are doing quite fine, both dentally and otherwise.
So how can you avoid fluoride?
Drink spring water and avoid extra doses of the stuff in your toothpaste. I use Green Beaver toothpaste without flouride, one of the only brands I’ve been able to find without the stuff.
And don’t rely on your Brita to take out the stuff. It wasn’t made for that, as this note from the company attests:
“The ion exchange resin used in BRITA filters is not designed to remove negatively charged substances like fluoride. However, the activated carbon in the BRITA filters absorbs so effectively that it may remove a trace amount of fluoride throughout the life of the filter. Unfortunately, we can’t provide you with any suggestions for removing significant percentages of fluoride; none of our products are designed to do this. ” – BRITA customer service rep
While fluoride certainly won’t kill you, it’s not exactly meant to be ingested either. That alone makes it worth avoiding as far as I’m concerned.
Tags: fluoridated water, fluoride, fluoride treatment
Comments (4)
Angela,
I came across this article while researching the health impacts of fluoridation of the water supplies in the United States — and more generally — worldwide. I have to say that I found this article appalling for the sheer amount and magnitude of disinformation contained within it.
The first article you link to, where you claim, “The American Dental Association now advise to avoid using fluoride,” says no such thing. The article advises “avoiding ingestion of large quantities of fluoride from reconstituted powdered concentrate infant formula and fluoridated dentifrice.” That is nowhere near the same thing.
The second article you link to is entitled “Three common mistakes in medical journalism,” and does not even mention fluoride, fluorosis or fluoridation of water anywhere in the article.
The third article you link to, “99% of Europe has banned fluoride in their water,” was written BY THIS SITE, and links to no reputable source.
The ADA and the CDC, on the other hand, note that fluoridation of water at the recommended levels (which, by the way, are obtained naturally in many places in Europe) reduce tooth decay by an estimated 25%.
There are enough great things about natural mattresses and eco-friendliness to be touting without scaring people into acting against their own best interests for reasons that are not backed up by science. I would like to keep recommending readers to your blog, but I cannot do so in good conscience if you are going to spread misinformation like this.
Ethan, you may want to check out the documentary on Fluoride http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3y8uwtxrHo
Jason and Angela,
The “Fluoride Action Network” is a conspiracy-theory group ideologically in favor of the abolition of fluoridated drinking water, much like the “National Vaccine Information Network” is an anti-vaccine group.
Neither one is interested in actual studies of public health. Perhaps a better starting point to go for facts on the history of water fluoridation is the wikipedia page on “Water fluoridation controversy”. (I can’t link, apparently, without getting flagged as spam.)
I was going to just let this go, but Angela’s gone and done it again with the fluoride, promoting fluoride-free toothpaste for children (!) this time, on your December 27th post.
You’re free to promote what you want, of course, but all you’re doing now is spreading lies and misinformation, thinking you’re doing a public good because you’re too lazy to go out and actually learn about fluoride and public health. Consider this the end of my following your blog.
I had too much fluoride in my drinking water as a child (5 children in my family) 4 of us have severe Fluorosis on our teeth and I can only imaging that further effects may be found in the future…my mother noticed the spotts on our teeth before my youngest sibling was born and SHE HAS BEAUTIFUL WHITE TEETH JUST LIKE MY PARENTS…after my parents decided to buy bottled water. Obviously irreversable…i suffer with ugly teeth, that break and hold cavities easily. I wish to spare my children this burden, and would like to know if regular spring water is fine or if i should get distilled or reverse osmosissed water…thanks! I agree “when in doubt, take it out”