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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

#381
post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot take: why don’t we stop the root cause of the problem, instead of the insestuous habit of layering on symptom management on top of symptom management. Stop giving kids these insanely high levels of sugar. No soda is a great start. Same thorn in my side is this completely crazy trend that this new life-long injection Ozempic/Wegovy is being suggested for kids 12 and up. Like what? It also atrophies muscle, tendons…

> why don’t we stop the root cause of the problem, instead of the insestuous habit of layering on symptom management on top of symptom management. Super simple answer: one requires everyone change their individual habits. Difficulty - very hard. The other requires no change at all on the individual level. Difficulty - very easy. Be careful with falling into the "public health initiatives are just a bandaid" trap. I w…

So why don’t we just put fluoride in the excessively sugary stuff.

Coca Cola, more fluoride, same classic taste!

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this may be useful to someone - I lost that genetic lottery and had lots of issues / most teeth patched up / painful cleans. Until recently, when I moved to a new dentist who said "oh, you've got lots of calcium buildup, you should be taking vit D+K2". This sorted out most of my issues almost immediately. I wish someone told me that 30 years ago... So apparently there's a few things that trivially impact your dent…

Novamin is another “dental secret”. US toothpaste doesn’t have it, but studies consistently show it’s more effective than just fluoridated toothpaste and protecting teeth from decay. You would think that in a “capitalist, free-market” such as the United States, an innovation with a clear and pronounced benefit over the status quo would take the marketplace by storm and quickly become the new status quo. Last I checke…

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7068624/

"Review shows that Novamin has significantly less clinical evidence to prove its effectiveness as a remineralization agent in treating both carious and non-carious lesion. Hence, better designed clinical trials should be carried out in the future before definitive recommendations can be made."

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#383
post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why don’t we stop the root cause of the problem, instead of the insestuous habit of layering on symptom management on top of symptom management. Super simple answer: one requires everyone change their individual habits. Difficulty - very hard. The other requires no change at all on the individual level. Difficulty - very easy. Be careful with falling into the "public health initiatives are just a bandaid" trap. I w…

A sugar tax would have the same effect, it's a single change that's very easy to implement. 10,000% should do.

The problem is sugar tastes good. Taxing processed sugary foods will certainly help, but are you also going to tax, say, sugar in a bag? If so, you have effectively banned Grandma's cookies. Do you want to be known as the politician who effectively banned home-cooked baked goods?

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now is it still necessary? An experiment in Windsor, Ontario (across the border from Detroit, MI): > Yemmi Calito's children are patients of Dr. Meriano. The two oldest kids were raised on fluoridated water in Windsor and both have healthy teeth. Her two youngest weren't, and they've had to be treated for serious tooth decay. Calito said their oral hygiene habits are the same. > "The younger two I feel they have mo…

Hot take: why don’t we stop the root cause of the problem, instead of the insestuous habit of layering on symptom management on top of symptom management. Stop giving kids these insanely high levels of sugar. No soda is a great start. Same thorn in my side is this completely crazy trend that this new life-long injection Ozempic/Wegovy is being suggested for kids 12 and up. Like what? It also atrophies muscle, tendons…

Liquid sugar is bad for teeth, but nowhere near as bad as something like potato chips. Food remnants that are high in carbs that get stuck in your teeth and then break down into simple sugars cause way more problems.

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You were fed formula made with fluoridated water tuned to dose a 200lb man when you were 8lbs. Er, no. A baby only consumes 4-8oz of water per day while an adult is consuming 125oz. The concentration is the same in both cases so the adult is getting 30X more. > Then factor in the bell distribution and you are massively overexposing huge numbers of people a few standard deviations out. How are you defining 'overexpo…

> The concentration is the same in both cases so the adult is getting 30X more. That should read 15-30 times more, according to your own figures. And then, the baby's mass is about 15-30 times less than the adult, so at the end you are in the same ballpark again, percentagewise.

Yep, but the implication was that the child was getting a megadose. They're not. They would be if they were drinking 15-30X as much water per unit mass. That's not a child, that's a water balloon.

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#386
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You guys have anything on the market yet?

Indeed we do! We have an oral microbiome test you can find here: https://www.bristlehealth.com/pages/products

and our first probiotic here: https://www.bristlehealth.com/pages/probiotic

All the species in the probiotic have been clinically studied with evidence that supports improvement in the oral microbiome and reduction of oral disease. Although, for transparency, the mechanism of action of some of the probiotics is still unclear, and we're working on figuring that out to improve oral probiotics and products in the future.

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#387
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different communities added fluoride at different times, it’s not hard to adjust for other factors when you’re drowning in such data.

Outsife the US, fluoride is added to tooth paste. Sounds like a better idea to me.

Outside the US, it's added to water too

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#388

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…

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Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#389
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really isn't. Lower cognition is strongly associated with dissatisfaction and violence, not to mention much lower economic productivity (less taxes!).

It's only a hypothesis and all cognitive impairment is not uniform.

You might prefer the term "conspiracy theory"

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#390
post #281
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could give targeted help to the ones that needs it, it would be more efficient to help them brush their teeth than just adding fluoride to the water that everyone drinks.

How would you target them, and what would make it more efficient?

We do it by noticing who needs help on the free dental checkups during the first years of life usually. If they have some sort of handicap, they can get help physically brushing or support to do it themselves every day. Helps a lot more than adding something that might work a little in everyones water.
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