161–170 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Children can't, and a lifetime of dental issues they didn't have the knowledge or good fortune to have prevented is a serious issue.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_countr...
For example: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6169031/pdf/10.1177...
Which finds that fluoridated water likely conservatively prevents about 30% of childhood dental caries.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why did many European countries discontinue fluoridation? Could it have something to do with the increasing use of fluoridated toothpaste?
Probably. But why take fluoride out of the water?
This is one of these US-specific polarised debates I find really bizarre, around some kind of issue that the rest of the world has by large solved but without any acknowledgement of this fact. Maybe the US should look into how other countries have solved it? It is completely bizarre witnessing both sides getting so polarised around a basically non-issue.
There is not real debate, just some people who don't understand how chemistry works.
In the USA, dental care is not covered by public insurance, and is an optional add-on to insurance through one’s employer.
So without addressing at all whether fluoridation is effective or safe, there doesn’t seem to be any compelling need to fluoridate public water, and there’s no economic down side for the public if governments choose not to do so.
Given this, why not just leave people alone to make their own choices? If the citizens in a city or state want to fluoridate the public water supply, then do so; if they choose not to, then leave them alone. It’s a free country and voters are grownups; let them choose for themselves.
If you live in a place that chooses the choice you dislike but for some reason fluoridated public water supply is a critical issue for you, either campaign to change it or vote with your feet.
This issue just doesn’t seem important enough to me to spend any effort arguing either way.
I initially dismissed it as the same category of stupid as anti-vax beliefs, but it turns out that there are a decent amount of good studies showing a link between fluoride in water and (slightly) lower IQ when pregnant mothers ingest the fluoride. Note that there is no significant effect after birth. The idea is to remove fluoride from water and advise pregnant women to use fluoride-free toothpaste. Everyone else ca…
The IQ link is very heavily lacking in evidence. In the actual research the main "risk" posed by flouridated water is actually fluorosis. This causes minerals in your enamel to be replaced with flouride which can cause them to be brittle in the long term. It's pretty uncommon but the thought is that now that flouride toothpaste are commonplace, the benefit of flouridated water is also way less. Which changes the calc…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The IQ link is very heavily lacking in evidence. In the actual research the main "risk" posed by flouridated water is actually fluorosis. This causes minerals in your enamel to be replaced with flouride which can cause them to be brittle in the long term. It's pretty uncommon but the thought is that now that flouride toothpaste are commonplace, the benefit of flouridated water is also way less. Which changes the calc…
Which changes the calculus Was that intentional? ( https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dental_calculus for those who didn't get the reference.)
Utah has naturally occurring fluoride in their water and some water systems its more than double(2.0mg/l) what they add to prevent dental issues. Why were they fluorinating their water? https://cascadefamily.com/images/WaterFluoridationLevelsUtah...
Or, toothpaste has enough extra fluoride, adding it to water is just a waste of money.
This is not that. This is the US health system being lead by a bunch of woo-woo people who don’t understand how research works.
Flouride in Water: Ingest away.
I do not understand how these two can co-exist.
It is trivial today to get whatever level of fluoride is recommended for dental health, via toothpaste. So there is no compelling need to fluoridate as there exist viable alternatives to achieve the same that fluoridation is for any other purpose than dental health. In the USA, dental care is not covered by public insurance, and is an optional add-on to insurance through one’s employer. So without addressing at all w…
I wonder how many people really brush their teeth on a regular basis.
> either campaign to change it or vote with your feet.
I imagine that campaigning to change it requires notifying people there is a problem, and getting it into the news and spreading that news.
Fluoride in Toothpaste: Do not ingest. Flouride in Water: Ingest away. I do not understand how these two can co-exist.