Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

salon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 468 posts

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#261

Post by dharma1 »

adrian_b wrote: post #206
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #119

Adding fluoride to water has always seemed weird to me, since you can't control for how much water someone is drinking or account for different bodily factors like age and weight. I wonder why the European solution of adding it to salt isn't the default, especially given that iodized salt is already so popular and commonplace. As a general rule of thumb, I think it's interesting to scrutinize dosage recommendations a…

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…

I’ve been thinking about this recently - fluorapatite is stronger than hydroxyapatite when it bonds to enamel, and less soluble by acid. But fluoride doesn’t occur in any natural processes in the body - while hydroxyapatite is a perfect biomimetic - very safe, you can swallow it safely - and also works great in toothpaste to remineralise teeth.

Currently using BioMin F (fluorapatite - very little fluoride due to a novel delivery mechanism but still) but considering switching to BioMin C (nanohydroxyapatite)

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#262

Post by adrian_b »

XorNot wrote: post #235
adrian_b wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fluoride is beneficial only when applied externally on the dental enamel, where it converts the hydroxyapatite synthesized by the human cells into fluorapatite, which is less soluble in the acids contained in food or excreted by bacteria. On the other hand, ingested fluoride has no benefits, because it cannot reach the tooth enamel and when in too large quantities it has bad effects, e.g. it may cause bone damage. Br…

Can you point to one single data point which has found any negative effect on human bones from excess consumption of fluoridated water at town water concentrations? This should be easy since it's been done at enormous scale for decades so a huge quorum of people have spent their their lives drinking fluoridated water.

Skeletal fluorosis is well known to occur in regions where the natural drinking water has high fluoride content, e.g. in some regions from India and China.

You need search no further than Wikipedia.

I am not aware of any study about the incidence of fluorosis in places where the drinking water is fluoridated artificially, but it would be very difficult to do such studies, due to the lack of comprehensive past statistics, to the many confounding factors and because only few of the existing cases are detected. When someone heals a bone fracture they almost never do additional complex tests to determine if it was normal for the fracture to happen or its likelihood was increased by a condition like fluorosis.

In any case no such studies are really needed, because when you have an activity like ingesting fluoride, for which there is absolutely no evidence of benefits and no known mechanism by which it could provide benefits, but there is weak evidence that it might be harmful and there are known mechanisms by which it may be harmful, then there is no rational doubt whether that activity should be done or not.

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#263

Post by 20after4 »

dash2 wrote: post #252
throwaway8689 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This study looked solely at impact on dental health. Other studies tell us it is associated with stomach cancer and infertility.

Is dental health not beneficial?

I guess it's arguable whether better dental health, plus cancer, could be considered a benefit. Would heavily depend on the rates of cancer or other harms vs. the rates of improved dental health. Certainly without thinking too deeply about it, childhood cavities would seem vastly preferable to nearly any sort of cancer unless the risk is minuscule.

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#264

Post by tnel77 »

dash2 wrote: post #251
adrian_b wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Given that the health bureaucracies of many countries seem to disagree with you, you need to cite more evidence and sources to support this claim. You can't just do it by strong assertion.

>>You can't just do it by strong assertion.

Sir, this is the internet. Sources are for the weak. Just type your response so it’s passionate and angry and people will believe you!

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#265

Post by 2rsf »

dotancohen wrote: post #194
dannyw wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

International versions of Sensodyne contain Novamin, which is a teeth-material-like compound that layers over your teeth to protect it. It has been proven in many clinical trials to not only reduce sensitivity, but also protect against tooth decay and cavities.

Interesting. I use Sensodyne for a completely unrelated reason: it does not contain Sodium Laurel Sulfate. I have not had a cavity in my entire life, and I'm over 45.

What's the connection between the first and second claims you make? does SLS cause cavities?

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#266

Post by verisimi »

yarg wrote: post #232

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6923889/ - Developmental fluoride neurotoxicity: an updated review https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3956646/ - Water Fluoridation: A Critical Review of the Physiological Effects of Ingested Fluoride as a Public Health Intervention https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8930857/ - The use of hydroxyapatite toothpaste to prevent dental caries > In vitro and…

> I'm not sure how conspiratorial I'm being, but for years I've felt that the fluoridation of water was more about the dilution of neurotoxic industrial waste product and not oral health.

"CITIZEN, please check yourself into a fema retraining facility! The government is there to serve us all for the greater good."

Nevermind the double speak, where the term 'the greater good' means the good of those people who consider themselves to be greater than you.

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#267

Post by koboll »

thrashh wrote: post #239
adrian_b wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think there might be some confounders at play here.

Consider this excerpt from Wikipedia's article on 'Tooth brushing':

> In the United States, although toothbrushes were available at the end of the 19th century, the practice did not become widespread until after the Second World War, when US soldiers continued the tooth brushing that had been required during their military service.[4]

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

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#268

Post by tzs »

newZWhoDis wrote: post #176
s0rce wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, its been a while since I worked in the area of dental fluoride (was part of my PhD) but my understanding was systemic exposure pre-eruption was still beneficial. This (possibly biased source) agrees: https://www.dentalcare.com/en-us/ce-courses/ce334/pre-erupti... Excess exposure can cause fluorosis but nothing to do with the brain.

None of the studies I have seen properly account for the lifetime effect, and instead only deduce lack of harm from flawed isolated studies. It’s in the entire water supply. You were gestated in a womb of a woman consuming highly fluoridated water. You were fed formula made with fluoridated water tuned to dose a 200lb man when you were 8lbs. The water you drank as your bones were growing was similarly overdosed The f…

> It’s in the entire water supply

Not quite. In the US about 15% of the population get their drinking water from private wells. I wonder if anyone has compared groups that are similar except for whether they are on a well or municipal?

It shouldn’t be hard to find such groups by looking at the boundaries of municipal water systems. For example on my street everyone east of me is on city water and everyone else is on wells. Both groups are demographically very similar.

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#269

Post by dharma1 »

david_l_lin wrote: post #246
Natsu wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tooth decay is caused by acid produced by bacteria. It's too bad we can't displace the bacteria themselves instead of working downstream from that.

Except that we can! The oral microbiome can be modulated to get exactly what you’re asking: remove pathogens that are good at creating acid and replacing them with ones that are good at remineralizing. Shameless plug for my company (Bristle Health) that is trying to do exactly that via oral microbiome testing and personalized recommendations and products to improve.

Interesting, can you tell more? I’ve tried oral probiotics without much effect.

Did notice a difference for a couple of days after taking antibiotics for a week for something else, but it quickly subsided (my regular micro biome probably quickly recolonised the mouth).

Re: Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

#270

Post by tomatocracy »

blackhaz wrote: post #231
adrian_b wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wouldn't some part of toothpaste end up ingested? With strong fluoride pastes (like those 5000 ppm specialized ones) could there also be a risk?

Yes - in the UK at least that's one of the reasons why the ultra high fluoride toothpastes are effectively only available when prescribed by a dentist.
Post reply on HN