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Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

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Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#241
post #222

Twenty years ago, I moved from Michigan (a state that uses fluoride) to Mississippi (a state that doesn't use fluoride). My dentist at the time told me that I was going to end up with tooth decay if I stayed down there for more than a few years. Sure enough, five years later I moved back to Michigan and ended up with a cavity in an unusual place. My (new) dentist in Michigan was completely unsurprised. He said there…

> No decent dentist would ever work in Mississippi. This sounds like some elitist BS.

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Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#242

FYI: The CDC recommends breastfeeding infants, as breastmilk contains significantly less fluoride than fluoridated drinking water. If breastfeeding is not possible, the CDC also endorses using fluoridated water in infant formula, though it suggests mixing the formula with low-fluoride bottled water to lessen the risk of dental fluorosis. Infants who are fed formula made with fluoridated tap water can have three to fo…

Every chemical imbalance in infants is going to have much greater effects than on adults. They are literally a fraction of our body mass

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#243
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No credible scientific evidence exists that ingesting fluoride is beneficial. Whenever you point this out, people respond with studies that focused on topical application. This topic is weird. Otherwise intelligent people shut down and begin quoting movies from the 1960’s, and are somehow incapable of distinguishing between a topical mouthwash and oral consumption. Might as well drink sunscreen and talk about the red…

Im interested in your take about how humans get water into their bodies without coating their teeth in it

I have sensitive teeth, when I drink water or any liquid really, it doesn’t touch my teeth.

I’m more confused by how you would coat your teeth while drinking, do you swish it around in your mouth every sip?

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, fluoride must not be added to any food or beverage, because it provides no benefits whatsoever when ingested. Fluoride is beneficial only when applied externally on the dental enamel, so that the fluoride ions will passively substitute the hydroxide ions. There is no known biological process that uses actively fluoride in the human body and excessive ingested fluoride has bad effects, e.g. bone damage. Therefore…

Wouldn't some part of toothpaste end up ingested? With strong fluoride pastes (like those 5000 ppm specialized ones) could there also be a risk?

Obviously a little fluoride will be ingested. However it is doubtful that this would increase much the total amount of fluoride that is ingested daily, mainly from the plants that you eat and from the natural water that you drink.

When you brush your teeth with fluoridated paste or you wash your mouth with a fluoride solution and you spit it, most of the fluoride acts against the tooth enamel to harden it and only a little is ingested.

On the other hand, when you drink fluoridated water, only very little of the fluoride acts against the tooth enamel to harden it and most of it is ingested, which will provide no further benefits, but which might have bad effects.

How there is even a discussion about which choice is better, beats me.

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#246
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The harmful dose is many orders of magnitude higher than the concentration in tap water. Dose makes the poison. Literally any chemical in sufficient dose is poisonous

Tooth decay is caused by acid produced by bacteria. It's too bad we can't displace the bacteria themselves instead of working downstream from that.

Except that we can! The oral microbiome can be modulated to get exactly what you’re asking: remove pathogens that are good at creating acid and replacing them with ones that are good at remineralizing.

Shameless plug for my company (Bristle Health) that is trying to do exactly that via oral microbiome testing and personalized recommendations and products to improve.

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#247
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Omg, no wonder my teeth are getting worse after moving to Amsterdam. I drink a ton of water and use Maldon salt. I didn’t realize there wasn’t fluoride in the water. (All the Nutella isn’t helping either, but… ooh, maybe that’s a reasonable vector for Europeans)

Everyone in the Netherlands is using fluorided toothpaste and brushes twice a day, cavities are really low.

Good thing I left NL or I would have invalidated your statement! Actually, I don't know anyone who brushes twice daily.

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#250
post #224

Adding fluoride to water has always seemed weird to me, since you can't control for how much water someone is drinking or account for different bodily factors like age and weight. I wonder why the European solution of adding it to salt isn't the default, especially given that iodized salt is already so popular and commonplace. As a general rule of thumb, I think it's interesting to scrutinize dosage recommendations a…

EU citizen here, they're not putting it in salt here, but in toothpaste.

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