131–140 of 176 posts
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I doubt you can do a clean comparison, likely too many confounding factors, at least to pull anything out easily.
If someone thinks they can figure out 1500 years from now if the 'fall of the west' was because of fluoride, it's probably easier to look at the countries in the west that do and don't use it now.
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Why specifically call out fluoride?
It's a bit of a thing with a particular political persuasion in the US right now (RFK Jr has made his anti-fluoride position a big part of his deal for his future role as Secretary of Health and Human Services), and there was a report in the news recently that some see as backing up the claims against fluoride: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2025-01-06/what-a-new-... It's not as conclusive a study as some peop…
Would love to see a similar study on fluoride in modern civilizations.
You might find this meta-analysis interesting: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/... Part of that conclusion (note that water fluoridation in the US is recommended to a level of 0.7 mg/L):
> This systematic review and meta-analysis found inverse associations and a dose-response association between fluoride measurements in urine and drinking water and children’s IQ across the large multicountry epidemiological literature. There were limited data and uncertainty in the dose-response association between fluoride exposure and children’s IQ when fluoride exposure was estimated by drinking water alone at concentrations less than 1.5 mg/L.
> On average, lead levels in children’s blood at the peak of the Roman empire could have risen 2.4 micrograms per decilitre, the researchers found, reducing their IQ by 2.5 to 3 points. When taking background lead into account, childhood blood levels may have reached about 3.5 micrograms per decilitre. > A 2021 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US found blood levels in children aged one t…
Wow. We mock those stupid Romans for putting lead in their drinking water supply, but we literally vaporized it and had everyone inhale it for decades so it'd go straight to the bloodstream.
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Wow. We mock those stupid Romans for putting lead in their drinking water supply, but we literally vaporized it and had everyone inhale it for decades so it'd go straight to the bloodstream.
Still do :) all the GA piston planes flying above you are still running leaded fuel.
This article correlates 100% with bad causal statements. Garum, anyone?
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Still do :) all the GA piston planes flying above you are still running leaded fuel.
The majority, but not all - some run on UL91 or even "mogas" (unleaded fuel from the petrol station).
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Plenty of people starved...just not (in their better centuries) the better-off Romans. For (presumed) IQ benefits, I'd focus more on the hygiene, and the relatively disease-free drinking water which all those lead pipes & lead-lined aqueducts provided. (Plus the sewers.) There were lots of nasty diseases you could catch by drinking the water in ancient cities. And at scale, "lead lowered IQ" isn't much different to "…
That a very reductive view. Data shows that during the Roman empire, people moved on mass from hill forts into the flatlands (presumably giving better acess to agroculture, trade and water). We also see far more material culture, and not just for rich people. Huge amount of just common consumer goods, and this even streches far beyond the borders of the empire itself. Population also increased during this time.
you mean after the slaughters?