Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm • Hacker News Board

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#461

Post by jessekv » Tue, May 30, 2023, 8:25 PM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #373

api wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sugar is everywhere in everything. Reducing kids intake of sugar requires a level of vigilance bordering on isolation from society, especially since human children seem genetically programmed to crave sugar and simple carbohydrates. If it’s around most kids will eat little else. I kind of remember this from being a kid. Until I was a teen anything with complex or savory tastes was absolutely disgusting. Only carbs, s…

> 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…

Some dutch people peer-pressured me into trying Rivella ;)

Dutch children love their bottles of apple juice and dutch teens love a can of chocolate milk, but I have to agree that the portion sizes of these are less than half of what you would get in the US.

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#462

Post by theodric » Tue, May 30, 2023, 8:29 PM UTC

distances wrote: post #290

theodric wrote: post #247

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

Why don't you, isn't that a recommendation where you come from? I also don't know anyone who doesn't brush twice daily (I'm from Nordics).

Authorities making recommendations about minutiae does not really dictate much of the way I live my life. If they want to make it a law, fine, I'll brush my teeth in between the cups of coffee I serially drink from the moment I rise until roughly dinnertime when I then switch to alcohol (something strongly discommended by other authorities). My teeth are fine, 40 years and counting. Perhaps it's all a conspiracy by Big Toothpaste to sell more toothpaste.

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#463

Post by ImPostingOnHN » Tue, May 30, 2023, 8:33 PM UTC

pfannkuchen wrote: post #218

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because you're gay, or black, or not Christian, or don't want to be shot?

Or black? Are you aware that there are quite a lot of black people in Mississippi?

How did that come to be?

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#464

Post by jiggawatts » Tue, May 30, 2023, 11:34 PM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #457

jiggawatts wrote: post #428

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Or any topic that involves more than one interacting decision, a graph, or any numbers at all. COVID made it pretty clear that neither the general population nor most politicians are remotely qualified to make decisions. Not just medical decisions, just… decisions.

I have a lot of very smart friends, like significantly higher than average in terms of degrees and technical jobs and standardized testing scores at least. One of them purchased a game that is like Apples to Apples but the point is to provide labels or name the axis of a graph. It was enlightening just how many of my friends that had a passing notion of calculus could not intuitively interpret what a graph actually m…

Something I saw a smart IT manager do is produce graphs for the monthly board report without a legend, labels, or any numbers at all. Just lines, but not even grid lines.

His explanation was that nobody understood the numbers anyway, the graph is just there to be a pretty colourful picture while he talks.

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#465

Post by rjzzleep » Wed, May 31, 2023, 12:14 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #384

spacephysics wrote: post #331

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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.

If you want to go to root cause how about teaching kids that simple carbs and sugar are exactly the same as far as the body is concerned. Let alone the fact that most simple carbs come with added sugar on top of that.

Personally I didn't really understand that properly until either my late twenties or early thirties.

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#466

Post by KETpXDDzR » Wed, May 31, 2023, 3:14 PM UTC

thrashh wrote: post #239

adrian_b wrote: post #206

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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.

Correlation doesn't yield causation! The whole fluoride in drinking water only came up based on a study from abroad. There, they noticed an improvement of dental health over time after they introduced fluoride in their water. However, this study and the same for the 50th ignore the fact that dental hygiene and awareness dramatically improved during this time. Thus, the better dental health is more likely from better topical application of fluoride and more regular brushing/flossing. I'm concerned that we have all the scientific facts and keep ignoring them.

Fun fact: Dentists recommend flossing before brushing.

Edit: "For example, in Finland and Germany, tooth decay rates remained stable or continued to decline after water fluoridation stopped in communities with widespread fluoride exposure from other sources." - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#467

Post by katbyte » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 8:20 PM UTC

RC_ITR wrote: post #451

katbyte wrote: post #243

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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?

>I’m more confused by how you would coat your teeth while drinking, do you swish it around in your mouth every sip? I mean we are really going down a rabbit hole, but the water goes in my mouth, I swallow, my mouth remains wet with some residual water. Unless you're opening your throat and pouring directly in, I guarantee water is touching your teeth, even with a straw.

that sounds like a terribly inefficient way to get fluoride on teeth compared to toothpaste

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#468

Post by sunk1st » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 1:02 AM UTC

olodus wrote: post #370

olodus wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WHO produced the exact same data but for adults. I did see similar results there (several EU countries above US). You gave no references as response, instead giving another personal experience.

My original response were specifically about references. But sorry if it sounded more aggressive than it was. I mistook you for the original person I replied to, which made me answer more direct than maybe was necessary. Also, it was my bad for not linking the actual reference for WHOs adult data. I'll link it here instead [1]. That said, on second look it is from 2000, so it is much older than the one on children. M…

Sorry that it took me so long to respond. I was wrong to over generalize to the EU. My personal experience is with countries around the Mediterranean and I maintain that while it may be available it’s not taken advantage of the way it is in the US.