Since the 1940s, we have been all sold the mantra that fluoride prevents cavities and that any risks involving it are outweighed by the benefits. Fluoride is constantly pushed in new and greater ways whether it's in our oral care products, our processed foods, our pesticides and even pharmaceuticals. Over 72% of the US population currently has access to fluoridated water (generally to 0.7 ppm or 0.7mg per liter of water).
Yet, the controversy still rages on.
In recent years, the campaign to remove fluoride from our drinking water has gained huge momentum. Many countries have never introduced fluoride at all, or they have taken the step to remove it from their water systems.
Is this justified?
I will look at some of the evidence in this article. I will only use scientific studies (hopefully with links) to back up my theory – that fluoride risks far outweigh the benefits. (Oh, and that maybe the Creator – whatever you choose to call him/her/it – has a clue about what the human body needs in the first place.)
!! Warning!!
This is a highly controversial topic. I do not post this to start a debate, and I'm not interested in getting into one. (I will flag any disrespectful comments and mute repeat offenders.) All I am doing is presenting the information I have found as I look into this topic for myself and my family. Where possible, I include the links to all the studies mentioned, so that you may do the reading as well and make your own decision. I thank you for your understanding!
Does it do what it says on the tin?
According to almost everyone in the field of public health policy in the US tells us that fluoride prevents cavities and encourages oral health.
What does the evidence suggest?
One study showed a slight (almost insignificant) decreases in tooth decay with fluoridation, but we really are talking tiny differences. Tooth-by-tooth, it was less than 1/10 of 1 tooth difference (about 4% overall.) However, when looking at total number of surfaces in a child's mouth, the difference was less than 1%, clinically insignificant.
Proponents of fluoride argued that the tiny difference was due to the fact that children in unfluoridated areas get fluoride from other sources – which is a decent argument until you realize that the decline of tooth decay has occurred simultaneously in all the other western countries – most of whom do not fluoridate their water!
http://fluoridealert.org/studies/caries03/
The above study is hardly alone. Proponents have tried to show that fluoride is beneficial, but they have not been successful.
http://fluoridealert.org/studies/ifs/
Even when studied against lactobacillus, one of the bacteria present in plaque which is responsible for tooth decay, fluoride was ineffective in the job it has always been promoted to do. Although this one was a very small study, it did not make any headline nor prompt any larger studies, mainly because no one is interested in funding a study which might (further) bring into question the effectiveness of fluoride.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24187711
Another nail in the promotion coffin is this: in areas where water fluoridation has stopped, the number of dental caries has not increased!
http://fluoridealert.org/studies/caries05/
Fluoride has actually done nothing to decrease the rate of dental caries. Decay was already well on the decrease long before fluoridation was introduced. Through better hygiene, nutrition and knowledge in general, we had already made the bulk of the improvements. Adding fluoride played no part in that!
(graphs from FluorideAlert.org)
In the next part, I will talk a bit about what happens when you get too much fluoride as well as why it's so easy to get too much and how prevalent fluorosis really is in the US.
(quote graphic from NoFluoride.com)
Lori Aberle Hopkins – photographer at Viking Visual, author, student-of-the-world.
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