Validating... 
For most people, fluoride in water isn’t something to think twice about. To them – maybe even to you – it’s simply as necessary as, well, water in public water.
And so they expect it as much as they expect the precious liquid to come gushing up from the pipes when they turn the faucet.
In fact, community water fluoridation has been considered a smart, heathy, and necessary public practice for 65 years now, after scientists noticed that communities with unusually high but natural water fluoridation experienced teeth that, though mottled, were highly resistant to decay.
And the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) even lists it as one of the 10 Greatest Public Health Achievements of the 20th Century, along with family planning and the recognition of cigarettes as a health hazard (1).
Today, nearly 60% of U.S. citizens consume water infused with fluoride. And given the widespread adoption and good ole’ time working its magic, convincing us that fluoride is simple common sense, people who question it are typically considered crackpots and fanatics.
But some of you might remember that putting fluoride in community water was a topic of controversy even back in the 50s, and talk of this new technique for improving the public’s oral health sparked an uproar across America.
People Asked Hard Questions about the Science
Is there enough of a history here to properly gauge long-term effects? Do we really know what we’re doing? And isn’t adding chemicals to our water supply equivalent to compulsory medicine – a violation of civil rights?
The noise level went down over the decades, but it never went away completely. And now the opposition is back. As loud as ever. Asking these very same questions.
In fact, it would probably surprise most Americans to learn that tampering with water in this manner is far from standard practice. There are only 11 countries with 50% or more of the population drinking fluoridated water (2), and it’s not because they’re poor. Most developed nations do not fluoridate their water – only 3% of the population in Western Europe does – and it’s not uncommon at all for fluoridated water campaigns abroad to be met with and shut down by vehement opposition.
Americans are leaning back that direction too.
A host of fluoride-damning studies have emerged since the beginning of this century, and in 2012 New Hampshire even started requiring infant fluoride warnings on water bills.
Wait, Wait – What Does Fluoride Have to Do With Infants?
A lot, actually. And not much of it good.
In 2010, important research findings surfaced in the Journal of the American Dental Association reporting that infant formula prepared with fluoridated water could lead to dental fluorosis, a condition manifested with excess fluoride exposure and characterized by damaged, discolored teeth (3).
The color of your grandchild’s smile isn’t the worst part either. If symptoms of fluoride overexposure show on their teeth, there’s a very good chance it’s wreaking havoc inside as well, on everything from bones to organs to the brain.
Even the CDC, which still thinks fluoridated water is one of the best things since sliced bread, warns of the dangers of mixing fluoridated water with infant formula (4).
And here the frightening fluoride debacle only begins.
Fluoride Also May Weaken Your Bones
This particular issue came as a big surprise to most people, as the common consensus is that this stuff makes your bones thicker and stronger. Others promise it’ll fend off osteoporosis.
But it turns out that fluoride can cause excess bone growth – that’s why people thought it would make bones stronger. They assumed denser bone meant healthier.
It turns out, however, that at a certain point this excess bone growth causes problems, leading to symptoms very reminiscent of advanced arthritis, including pain in bones and joints, and severe stiffness.
Note: People who are aging, having vitamin deficiencies, or suffer from kidney or cardiovascular problems may be even more sensitive to these effects.
Counterintuitively, fluoride may even make human bones more brittle.
A study published in 2001 looked at dental fluorosis in Mexican children and reported a steep rise in bone fractions correlating with rises in dental fluorosis, as well as significant increases in mild cases (5). Another small study of 92 people looked at the mechanical strength of bones in humans that were going through hip replacement surgery and found that higher fluoride levels in the bone correlated with them being weaker and of lower quality (6).
And here’s a study that specifically notes an association of higher incidence of bone fracture with long-term exposure to fluoride (7).
And Is Drinking Water Sacrificing Mental Health?
Not to be outdone on identifying the harmful effects of community water fluoridation, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and China Medical University in Shenyang indicate that fluoride may impair cognitive development and cause behavior problems in our children and grandchildren (8).
This is not the first time the substance has been linked to impaired cognition. FluorideAlert.Org lists and references 197 studies (human and animal) implicating fluoride associations with brain development, brain damage, reduced intelligence, memory problems, and neurobehavioral deficits (9).
Mercola.com Lists Additional Fluoride Risks As (10):
- increased lead absorption
- lowered thyroid function
- bone cancers (osteosarcoma)
- tumors and cancer
- dementia
- impaired immune functioning
- muscle disorders
- infertility
- and more…
And in this revealing video from FluorideAlert.org, you’ll discover 10 more important facts about fluoride you NEED to know…
Why Didn’t We Know About Any of This Before?
Well, that’s the thing – we kind of did.
It’s not that governments didn’t acknowledge the risks of fluoride – after all, that’s what spawned the controversy.
The idea was that if we kept fluoride to low trace amounts, we could reap the rewards of higher resistance to teeth decay without any of the negative side effects. The thing is, however, that in recent eras we’re coming to find out we may not have set the bar low enough, and that there may not be a hypothetical “low enough.”
Because, as always is the case with potentially dangerous elements, a little bit of bad can affect different people in different ways.
If it even works at all.
Toxic Toothpaste; Toxic Water
Have you ever read the warnings labels on a fluoridated toothpaste tube? The amount of fluoride in a pea-sized bit of toothpaste is equal to that in a glass of water; however, while you’re instructed to contact poison control centers if you swallow a bit of toothpaste, no such warning comes on your kitchen sink.
And what of the pea-sized amount so cautiously recommended on toothpaste in the first place? When’s the last time you actually took in the tiny size of a pea? When is the last time you actually used such a small amount of toothpaste to brush your teeth?
Dr. Mercola writes (11), “According to the research literature, you should brush with no more than one-quarter of a milligram of fluoride, and call Poison Control if you swallow that amount… When you see a toothpaste ad, that long swirl of toothpaste is actually more than one month’s worth!”
This surely doesn’t sound like a substance you ought to have on your toothbrush, let alone in your drinking water…
But What of the Benefits?
What, indeed…
Some experts believe the true reason less tooth decay was observed in populations with naturally-fluoridated water was because of the overall high mineral content in that water, not necessarily the fluoride itself.
Swallowing fluoride may not even do all that much for your teeth, as it works most effectively with topical application, and even in that form it’s nothing to write home about. This 2010 study in Langmuir suggests that the layer of protection offered by application of a fluorapatite layer is far too thin to provide any benefits and is likely to wear off when you use your teeth to eat (12).
While the CDC reports that dental caries did decline in the years after water fluoridation began (13), as FlourideAlert.org points out (14), “What the CDC failed to mention is that tooth decay rates have ‘precipitously declined’ in all western countries, irrespective of whether the country ever fluoridated its water. Indeed, most western countries do not fluoridate their water and yet their tooth decay rates have declined at the same rate as the U.S. and other fluoridated countries.”
These assertions are backed with data from the World Health Organization (14).
The Facts about Your Teeth
According to the FDA, fluoride is an “unapproved drug,” yet your government keeps on forcing you to drink it when they put it your water. Not only is it likely ineffective when used in this manner, but according to the CDC, 41% of adolescents have fluorosis (15).
In problem regions, percentages are much higher.
The glaringly obvious question is, “Why do we put up with it?” And it’s a darn good question because we really don’t need to.
No matter what you believe about life on Earth, Nature doesn’t specialize in design flaws. It’s ludicrous to think the human body would be a perfectly-functioning converter of food into energy cursed with a mouthful of rotten teeth that can’t chew – or that other animals would escape the tooth decay challenge unscathed while we were destined to suffer.
It’s equally ludicrous that humans would be required to make up for this “natural flaw” by doing silly things like putting chemicals in water.
That’s not how Nature works. Not now and not ever.
As observed in the bones of our ancestors in Peru mentioned in our recent article about teeth health, humans who existed before the modern diet didn’t have the oral health problems we have today (16). And it’s likely a diet problem.
To make a long story short, we don’t need fluoride to save us from some mysterious natural process of inevitable tooth decline. Especially considering the potential havoc it can wreak on our health.
All we need to do is save ourselves from ourselves.
Until Things Change, What Can You Do to Protect Yourself?
It’s alarming to realize that something as seemingly-unavoidable as the water that comes out of the tap can be harming your health in so many ways, from your bones to your brain functioning. So other than moving to a hermit cabin tucked away somewhere in the Swiss Alps, what can you do about something so entrenched in your life?
Here are a few suggestions:
- Buy fluoride-free toothpaste.
- Find out if fluoride is in your water and how much. You can do so by contacting your community water district or even getting a lab to analyze a sample. You may even consider moving if the levels are unusually high.
- Get involved with and support organizations asking the hard questions and pushing for change.
- Focus on your diet as a way to protect your teeth. The answer to holding off tooth decay isn’t in confronting the symptoms with band aid chemical “solutions” – it’s in confronting the deeper problems of nutrition, adequate sleep, and overall healthy living choices.
- You can use reverse osmosis to remove a good deal of it (maybe up to 80%), but don’t expect to completely purify the water unless you can afford a commercial filter (or have access to a very unique and rare household filter that is finally being released to the public — See a Live Demonstration of it Here )
Resources:
- http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00056796.htm
- http://fluoridealert.org/content/bfs-2012/
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20884921?dopt=Abstract
- http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/safety/infant_formula.htm
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935185710043
- http://jdr.sagepub.com/content/90/5/683.extract
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11341339
- http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/fluoride-childrens-health-grandjean-choi/
- http://fluoridealert.org/issues/health/brain/
- http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/01/22/does-fluoride-really-fight-cavities.aspx
- http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/11/dr-bill-osmunson-on-fluoride.aspx
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21090577
- http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4841a1.htm
- http://fluoridealert.org/issues/caries/who-data/
- http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db53.htm
- http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.21296/abstract
