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Water Fluoridation May Not Prevent Cavities, Scientific Review Shows

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Re: Water Fluoridation May Not Prevent Cavities, Scientific Review Shows

#51

Post by dflock »

mrfusion wrote: post #34
evunveot wrote: post #26

From what I've read, we've already identified the specific bacteria responsible for tooth decay [1], but there seems to have no interest in developing treatments based on that insight. Instead we're supposed to essentially sterilize our mouths and remineralize our teeth (which is something saliva does naturally) with topical fluoride twice a day. My cat has never brushed her teeth, and they're fine, presumably becaus…

Oral probiotics do exist. Look them up on Amazon. I tried taking them for 6 weeks but I really have no idea how to measure their effectiveness. I'd be curious if anyone has any insight on this.

uBiome (http://ubiome.com/) will sequence you microbiome for ~$100 - they support mouth, nose, gut & skin samples. If you're really interested, you could do one sample before, one after and get them both sequenced and compare the two.

Re: Water Fluoridation May Not Prevent Cavities, Scientific Review Shows

#52

Post by vbnmvbnmvbnm »

jjulius wrote: post #50
jrcii wrote: post #48

I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Mandrake, have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?

Ice cream, Mandrake? Children's ice cream?

Re: Water Fluoridation May Not Prevent Cavities, Scientific Review Shows

#53

Post by dd9990 »

ChaoticGood wrote: post #23

It is a great idea to revisit public policies that were put into place at the same time Doctors were advertising Cigarettes as healthy. Water is a precious resource and should be protected as such. "Generally, in Germany fluoridation of drinking water is forbidden. The relevant German law allows exceptions to the fluoridation ban on application. The argumentation of the Federal Ministry of Health against a general pe…

Fluoridation has been mandatory in Ireland since the 50s. Considering how radically Irish lifestyles have changed in the last few decades (less poverty, better access to dental products, inexpensive/free dental care etc) I think it's crazy we're still forcefully mass medicating the majority of the population without their consent. Although mostly harmless, excessive fluoridation was recently linked to hypothyroidism in a UK study. I think it's time to seriously reconsider the decision instead of the occasional self-assurance everything is fine as is.

Re: Water Fluoridation May Not Prevent Cavities, Scientific Review Shows

#54

Post by biot »

fapjacks wrote: post #39
fapjacks wrote: post #18

Oh, so then that means that fluoride is actually for mind control. Gotcha.

I see the sarcasm was completely lost on at least four geniuses.

Fortunately for the quality of this site, there were only a few people who lacked the self-restraint needed to avoid pointing out such a painfully obvious, reddit-esque joke.

Re: Water Fluoridation May Not Prevent Cavities, Scientific Review Shows

#55

Post by jameshart »

tokenadult wrote: post #30
jessriedel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A new Cochrane meta-analysis is much more likely to make me change my mind about some empirical claim than a fresh study.

On the whole, the Cochrane Collaboration is a force for good, but its methodology of reviewing previous published studies lets it miss important issues of prior plausibility (that is, lack of plausibility) when reviewing "alternative" treatments. https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/of-sbm-and-ebm-redux-pa...

Was that conclusion the result of a meta-analysis of meta-analysis methodologies? And there I thought this was just an amusing cartoon... https://xkcd.com/1447/

Re: Water Fluoridation May Not Prevent Cavities, Scientific Review Shows

#56

Post by JeremyNT »

This article has such a bad headline.

The important thing to note here is that this review is looking for the impacts of fluoridation since the 1970s. The evidence remains clear that fluoridation is better than nothing at preventing cavities! The question at hand is whether it's still important now that we have widespread adoption of fluoride toothpaste.

This Cochrane study concludes, as many Cochrane reviews do, that there's not yet enough high quality evidence to answer this question.

The takeaway here shouldn't be the absurd headline that "fluoridation may not prevent cavities," it should be "we should study how effective fluoridation is now that we have added other successful interventions."

Re: Water Fluoridation May Not Prevent Cavities, Scientific Review Shows

#57

Post by brianwawok »

evunveot wrote: post #26

From what I've read, we've already identified the specific bacteria responsible for tooth decay [1], but there seems to have no interest in developing treatments based on that insight. Instead we're supposed to essentially sterilize our mouths and remineralize our teeth (which is something saliva does naturally) with topical fluoride twice a day. My cat has never brushed her teeth, and they're fine, presumably becaus…

Have you seen a 50 year old cat? I bet their teeth would be completely rotten.

Okay so house cats don't live that long.. but look at longer living mammals like horses. Their teeth are terrible at 20 years old.

I think the human teeth will do fine without brushing for 20-30 years, enough to make babies. They aren't really designed for the 75 year life plan..

Re: Water Fluoridation May Not Prevent Cavities, Scientific Review Shows

#58

Post by bd »

jessriedel wrote: post #10

Just so everyone is clear: this review found that there is little evidence that water fluoridation has any benefits. It does not dispute that fluoride in toothpaste reduces tooth decay. > Studies that attest to the effectiveness of fluoridation were generally done before the widespread usage of fluoride-containing dental products like rinses and toothpastes in the 1970s and later, according to the recent Cochrane stu…

Yup, fluoride in toothpaste is indeed pretty efficient.

And apparently more of it the better. There are even benefits of using stronger fluoride concentrations than just regular toothpaste's 1400-1450 ppm. Humble old fluoride seems to work better than fancy calcium sodium phosphosilicate (also known as NovaMin):

"The purpose of this in vitro study was to evaluate the effect of toothpastes containing sodium fluoride in different concentrations or a calcium sodium phosphosilicate system on pre-softened dentin demineralization and remineralization.

Under these experimental conditions, the high fluoride toothpastes promoted remineralization and inhibited demineralization more effectively, than the 1450 ppm F, the non-fluoridated (control) and the calcium sodium phosphosilicate toothpastes."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20546825

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NovaMin

There are special high-fluoride gels used by dentists / dental hygienists / can be bought in pharmacies; they can help a lot if you have sensitive teeth.

Re: Water Fluoridation May Not Prevent Cavities, Scientific Review Shows

#59

Post by jessriedel »

tokenadult wrote: post #30
jessriedel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A new Cochrane meta-analysis is much more likely to make me change my mind about some empirical claim than a fresh study.

On the whole, the Cochrane Collaboration is a force for good, but its methodology of reviewing previous published studies lets it miss important issues of prior plausibility (that is, lack of plausibility) when reviewing "alternative" treatments. https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/of-sbm-and-ebm-redux-pa...

I don't think this has anything to do with Cochrane's methodology. This is about choice of presentation.

They are very clear in the paper that they are reviewing a certain body of studies, and that there are other plausible reasons (not backed up by RCTs) to believe water fluoridation could have beneficial effects. The numbers they quote summarize the evidential content of the RCTs. I don't need or want them to bundle this all into one Bayesian percentage. This would be dominated by their own priors which I do not necessary share nor are necessary shared by anyone I discuss the study with. (Yet we can all agree on the frequentist summary of the RCTs.)

Re: Water Fluoridation May Not Prevent Cavities, Scientific Review Shows

#60

Post by lutorm »

Having grown up in Sweden, being told that fluoride applied topically was functional at reducing caries but that eating toothpaste or swallowing the fluoride rinse that we got in elementary school was bad for you, I was astonished to learn that some countries put it in their water.

Even in the U.S., toothpaste containers warn you not to swallow it and contact a Poison Control Center if you accidentally do. And then they put it in tap water? It just seems really inconsistent.

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