631–640 of 1001 posts
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> Putting fluoride in water promotes freedom. I rather define freedom by the government not deciding what's good for me
You're free to get your water straight from the ground, then.
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Yeah, this is one of those places where because RFK Jr took the anti- stand there's an understandable assumption that it's more nutty anti-science stuff, but it's much less clear cut when it comes to fluoridation. Europe has much lower rates than the US, which is an outlier on these stats only approached by Australia, and before Utah the major high profile anti-fluoride stance was made by Portland: https://www.wweek.…
I'd be happier if that broken-but-correct-2x-a-day guy banned HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) instead. It is my personal hypothesis that it is the cause of 'sugar cancer' (general cases of bad sugars / imbalances of sugars in the body), including Diabetes.
In the body it's literally all the same with minor variations in ratios. Indeed, the revered Mexican coke with cane sugar...the sucrose is broken down to component glucose and fructose in the acidic environment [1], exactly as happens with HFCS variants, and it would have been the moment it hit your digestive tract anyways.
There is zero scientific justification for the weird focus on HFCS. Yes, glucose and grossly excessive amounts of fructose are a serious problem. Especially in forms that rapidly get absorbed and go off like a glucose bomb -- our bodies are not adapted to the extremely rapid intake of glucose forms of food we eat now, including ultra-processed foods fill with refined carbs.
The #1 source of glucose in most diets is white breads, rices and so on. White flour is 60-80% starch, while white rice pushes 90% starch. Starch is strings of glucose molecules, and indeed enzymes turn that starch to free glucose almost immediately when eaten. So from a glucose perspective flour is much worse than an equal amount of sugar.
And of course nutritive sweeteners in all their forms should be avoided. But table sugar isn't more wholesome or better than HFCS.
[1] - Fun video about the sucrose in Mexican coke - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY66qpMFOYo
Putting fluoride in water promotes freedom. That sounds crazy, but let me justify it. If you are poor you can't go anywhere or buy anything. You're not free if you're poor. If you are sick, you may be confined to a hospital bed or not feel good enough to do anything. If you are sick you're not free. Putting fluoride in water reduces dental costs and incidence of cavities and therefore tooth infections, particularly a…
But you will brush your teeth anyway, and then you apply fluoride topically. It works. Here in Sweden we decided against fluoride for this reason and the fact that it is in fact toxic. It isn't sensible to use systemic exposure when we can use topical exposure and can improve mouth health by education, so that people do what they're supposed to. The fluoride approach achieves a basic level of health, but you can do s…
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Personal freedom ≠ "freedom of communities"—there is no such thing. Freedom applies to individuals, not collectives. When a community makes a decision that affects all its members, that’s democracy, but democracy is not unlimited authority. A majority vote does not grant the right to infringe on individual autonomy, which is why safeguards exist against the tyranny of the majority. Banning fluoride does not restrict…
But nobody is forced to drink municipal water. You can go to the grocery and pallets of gallon jugs if you prefer.
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> I don't use a toothbrush or toothpaste, and haven't ever really, as my ASD makes it unbearable. 99% of the world does brush their teeth, so I don't see how this is relevant to their health.
25% of the world population do not have access to drinkable water[0], brushing their teeth is a luxury for them. [0]: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/03/22/un-26-of-world-lacks-...
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Freedom from is the American way. Freedom to is the Canadian way. That's why Canada becoming an American anything is ridiculous and pisses off Canada so much that, for example, we've reduced our flights to America by +70% over the coming months.
Not when it comes to religion though: the European way (and I feel very much like considering Canadians something like honorary Europeans these days) was forged in painful wars stemming from and fueled by influence of religion on politics, and abuse of religion by politics. Both on the collective level, not so much on the individual level. The European way is all about having a strong firewall between religion and po…
There are even countries which have political parties that are Islamic affiliated.
The separation between religion and state refers to two things: the state not being able to enforce any religious aspects on citizens (freedom TO exercise any religion without interference from government), and religious entities not being able to influence or pressure the government outside the electoral process (freedom TO govern without interference from religious entities). Neither of these things prevents a political party founded on religious beliefs to participate in the electoral process.
Putting fluoride in water promotes freedom. That sounds crazy, but let me justify it. If you are poor you can't go anywhere or buy anything. You're not free if you're poor. If you are sick, you may be confined to a hospital bed or not feel good enough to do anything. If you are sick you're not free. Putting fluoride in water reduces dental costs and incidence of cavities and therefore tooth infections, particularly a…
Fluoridated water, enriched flour, iodized salt, vaccines, etc. are why we don't see diseases and conditions that plagued us in the past and continue to plague people in places without these measures. Fluoridated water is the reason I've never had a cavity despite growing up poor with a terrible diet, dental hygiene and care.
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Somewhat related, as a teen in the 90s I worked at McDonald’s in The Netherlands. Because of the diet in the US, the bread used for hamburgers contained extra calcium to be more ‘healthy’, because many people did not get enough calcium intake. In The Netherlands, where people drink much more dairy products, especially back in the 90s, people would get plenty of calcium so there was no need to put extra in the bread.…
You have to drink 32 ounces of milk per day to get enough daily calcium.
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And for that there is fluoride mouthwash, which again isn’t ingested and would be more effective. > Regular use of fluoride mouthrinse under supervision results in a large reduction in tooth decay in children's permanent teeth. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6457869/#:~:text=Be...
That doesn’t work because it’s topical. You give kids vitamins to get fluoride into their system to strengthen their developing adult teeth.
Would love to see evidence to the contrary (ingestion is superior to topical application w.r.t. fluoride).
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But you will brush your teeth anyway, and then you apply fluoride topically. It works. Here in Sweden we decided against fluoride for this reason and the fact that it is in fact toxic. It isn't sensible to use systemic exposure when we can use topical exposure and can improve mouth health by education, so that people do what they're supposed to. The fluoride approach achieves a basic level of health, but you can do s…
In the UK at least some areas have fluoridated water, despite almost all toothpaste being fluoridated. I suppose it most benefits the minority of people who do not brush their teeth. That benefit has to be balanced[1] against some evidence of risk. IMO the right fix is better dental hygiene, and a better (less sugary) diet. These are in turn are in part symptomatic of other problems (poverty, long working hours with…
There a really unfortunate use of "significant" in that document. The scientific meaning and the general meaning will cause very different interpretations from laymen.