411–420 of 468 posts
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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.
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>A Reverse Osmosis (RO) system can remove 85-92%* of fluoride in your water. https://www.paragonwater.com/does-reverse-osmosis-remove-flu...
RO systems waste something like three gallons for every usable gallon they produce.
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As someone who comes from an area with clean fresh water, that does not contain added fluoride, this is not a complex issue. It's simply not a question that comes up. People have good dental hygiene here. To my mind, yes sure you can over complicate the entire debate, but all of that is irrelevant in the face of these basic points: - Is there a chance that fluoride ingestion could be detrimental to human health? - Ca…
> but all of that is irrelevant in the face of these basic points: > - Is there a chance that fluoride ingestion could be detrimental to human health? - Can tooth decay be prevented by diet and brush/floss with good quality toothpaste? When evaluating those points, be sure to assess what actually happens , in real life, to real people, and not what could happen in theory. For example, even if tooth decay could be eff…
And no, your health insurance / social retirement example doesn't fit. Sticking to the default in these cases does not amount to willingly poisoning oneself.
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The therapy appears to be improving her teeth. Is there something I am missing?
Just because a treatment works doesn't mean it's the best treatment, or is treating the "cause." To say that a lack of fluoride is the cause of their bad teeth is silly. Not eating sugar/acidic foods, Novamin, or a different set of bacteria in her mouth would also improve her teeth.
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If you judge the truth of the information you receive based on the claimed authority of those who provide it, instead of using your own mind to discern whether that information is logically consistent or inconsistent, that is sad and I believe that this should be a cause of concern for you. Consider the following facts, which can be easily be verified in countless sources, e.g. in books written by real chemists or "h…
I am so very sorry stepping on something so sensitive.
Hardening the tooth enamel by fluoride is exactly like an anti-corrosive treatment of a steel surface.
If someone would propose that instead of applying the anti-rust layer on the external steel surface, a hole should be made in the steel, then the anti-corrosive coating should be put inside, then the hole should be plugged, enclosing inside the anti-corrosive material, and after all this they would expect that the external untreated steel surface will not rust, they would be laughed at. But this is equivalent with the theory that one should drink fluoridated water to harden the tooth enamel.
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This has to be satire. What sort of incredible self control does something like this require? Where does it end?
It's not satire. It takes enough self-control/willpower that, for example, a lot of people suffering from ADHD have problems with it. There are a lot of people out there who just aren't capable of habituating the tasks of brushing their teeth to the point of being done on autopilot - they have to consciously make themselves do it every time. And that's after more than half a century of brushing teeth being a cultural…
However, for such people the solution is not to drink fluoridated water, but to use fluoridated water to wash their mouth and then spit it.
If they cannot take water in mouth and spit it, then they certainly cannot feed themselves and they need permanent care. Whoever does that should also take care of their teeth.
Regarding money, I cannot believe that to be an obstacle. I eat relatively cheap food, because I buy only raw ingredients that I cook myself. Therefore in most days food costs me at most $5. I doubt that anyone who is really poor succeeds to spend much less for food. I wash my teeth after each meal with rather expensive tooth pastes from Colgate or Sensodyne. Even so, the daily cost for the tooth paste is at least 30 or 50 times less than the cost of food, so unless there is some remote place where the price of tooth paste is much more than 10 times more expensive than in Europe or North America, I cannot believe that being poor would prevent someone to brush their teeth. They would die of hunger much sooner than that.
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> Reducing kids intake of sugar requires a level of vigilance bordering on isolation from society No, it requires… parenting and education? And stopping children from being exposed to ads for sugary crap 12 hours a day. Habits are a huge part of it. Kids who “would only eat sugar if they could” are already used to consuming lots of sugar. They will definitely not starve themselves to death if no sugar/carbs are easil…
Is this a worse is better argument? I'm having a hard time understanding how it makes this a better solution than fluoridated water. It sounds like a moral argument against sugar rather than a practical solution to fight tooth decay.
I see this like mandating using a helmet and HANS device when driving drunk. Surely it might help reduce casualties, but is not addressing the problem that people are inflicting unto themselves.
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…
Not to refute your n=1, but reviews are a safer way of establishing whether something actually works. Eg here, from 2015: > There is insufficient information to determine whether initiation of a water fluoridation programme results in a change in disparities in caries across socioeconomic status (SES) levels. > No studies that aimed to determine the effectiveness of water fluoridation for preventing caries in adults…
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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…
Well it halved childhood cavities in the 50s. It did its job and I don’t think it’s hard to understand why it was done. Same reason why they stared iodine to salt… because people were having mental development issues. Now is it still necessary? That’s a different question but let’s not pretend that we don’t know why it was done.
2. It is kind of difficult to consume fluorinated water without exposing your teeth topically to the fluoride.
3. Ingesting fluorine is definitely not good for you and recent studies seem to confirm this.
So, it seems to me that while fluorinating drinking water would incidentally topically expose teeth to its beneficial effects, we don't really need to fluorinate our drinking water as there are other ways to expose teeth topically to fluorine that don't involve drinking fluorinated water.
And no, fluorinating water was not a good decision because of the cautionary principle. Even from the beginning, they knew that the effects came from topical exposure, adding it to drinking water was reckless.
But hell, this was the time where we added lead to gasoline.
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Whats the point of calcium fluoride in your toothpaste, the water solubility is very low I would suspect it to do almost nothing, could be wrong, never heard of this. Generally soluble salts like sodium or tin fluoride are used.
Sodium fluoride is a by product of aluminium production and is poisonous in high dosage. That’s why people are so anti fluoride. Calcium fluoride is naturally occurring and was what was discovered to be so good. Well the water it was first discovered was contaminated with sodium fluoride from aluminium but the water that promoted the research was calcium fluoride. But while sodium fluoride is poisonous in high levels…
I understand that calcium fluoride isn't going to harm you because its not soluble, its just like eating some inert rocks but its basically pointless to add to toothpaste.
I'm not worried about fluoride, its very helpful for dental health, I did a bunch of my PhD on this.