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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

#81

Post by facetube »

ownedthx wrote: post #80

Since there are US cities like Texarkana, AR that have not have fluoride in the water ever, it seems they would be a decent way to harvest some data quickly and get to the bottom of this. Anecdotally, I know a dentist that would work 2 days a week there as a sort of 'import-a-dentist' program, and she thought teeth were, in general, in much worse shape there than Little Rock, AR (3 hours away). Not enough to go on ob…

Portland, Oregon doesn't have any fluoride in its water supply either, for what it's worth.

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

#82

Post by ownedthx »

facetube wrote: post #81
ownedthx wrote: post #80

Since there are US cities like Texarkana, AR that have not have fluoride in the water ever, it seems they would be a decent way to harvest some data quickly and get to the bottom of this. Anecdotally, I know a dentist that would work 2 days a week there as a sort of 'import-a-dentist' program, and she thought teeth were, in general, in much worse shape there than Little Rock, AR (3 hours away). Not enough to go on ob…

Portland, Oregon doesn't have any fluoride in its water supply either, for what it's worth.

Seemingly a good list; http://fluoridealert.org/content/communities/

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

#83

Post by stephengillie »

ownedthx wrote: post #80

Since there are US cities like Texarkana, AR that have not have fluoride in the water ever, it seems they would be a decent way to harvest some data quickly and get to the bottom of this. Anecdotally, I know a dentist that would work 2 days a week there as a sort of 'import-a-dentist' program, and she thought teeth were, in general, in much worse shape there than Little Rock, AR (3 hours away). Not enough to go on ob…

While there's lots of anecdotal evidence trying to correlate these ideas, supposedly the statistical correlation isn't there.

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

#84

Post by stephengillie »

stephengillie wrote: post #41
cvwright wrote: post #32

They don't fluoridate the water here in Portland, OR. Compared to other parts of the country where I've lived, the difference in people's teeth is pretty shocking. I haven't heard any alternative hypothesis that would explain this difference better than the lack of fluoridation here. As I understand the article, they're saying that they couldn't find rigorous studies demonstrating the beneficial effects of fluoride.…

There's too much inertia in favor of fluoride being beneficial for any serious researcher to risk their credibility. Everyone "knows" fluoride makes teeth stronger, like lettuce being healthy to eat, or global warming is human-caused. In fact, even discussing the possibility is too much for most people to entertain. They think you're wasting their time with fantasy and falsehood, like conspiracy theorists always do.…

See? Even posting about the idea of researching it merits a downvote. The idea that fluoride has no benefits is as popular as Apple and Microsoft merging.

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

#86

Post by mikeyouse »

lutorm wrote: post #60

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 t…

As the saying goes,

    Sola dosis facit venenum
Or, 'The dose makes the poison'.. Many things are completely fine in small amounts but are dangerous in larger amounts.

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

#87

Post by gcb0 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #15
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…

The theory I've encountered is that fluoridation previously had an impact on cavity-prevention before people were actually brushing their teeth with fluoridated toothpaste. Now that toothbrushing is much more common, the impact has waned. Late edit; Here's a look at toothbrushing frequency in Europe by country from 1994 - 2010: http://i.imgur.com/VVBldAy.jpg Just imagine how much improvement you'd see from if the cha…

remember that non controlled measurements are worthless.

same time they started water fluoridation the population also started to pay attention to brushing their teeth. or do you think the govt took the initiative at any point in history?

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

#88

Post by eitally »

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…

The study doesn't account for the fact that many people don't brush their teeth daily, or more than once a day. :-/

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

#89

Post by colordrops »

mikeyouse wrote: post #21
colordrops wrote: post #5

Harvard study finding fluoride in water does negatively impact childhood development: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/fluoride-childrens...

It's important to note that this study was performed in China where they don't intentionally fluoridate their water supply. There are many areas with natural (or industrial waste..) levels of fluoride and many of these areas far exceed the level recommended for use in the US. The current target concentration in the US is 0.7mg/L and is routinely monitored and lowered if the background level is too high where some of…

What's your agenda in coming in and claiming the paper is irrelevant? It would have been better to let people read the paper and come to their own conclusions instead of draft off of your biased summary. If you actually read the paper, you would see that some of the regions that reported neurotoxic effects had levels that were lower than the legal limit in the US. Furthermore, the paper claimed that other toxins were factored in to the conclusion. See:

> Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic, but exclusion of studies including arsenic and iodine as co-exposures in a sensitivity analysis resulted in a lower estimate, although the difference was not significant.

But this story is already off the front page and you succeeded in burying my post and defending fluoride for some strange reason, so you win.

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

#90

Post by amalag »

lutorm wrote: post #60

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 t…

Here in the US fertilizer manufacturers need somewhere to dump their flouride byproducts, so we have it in the water.
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