Medical freedom vs. public health: Should fluoride be in our drinking water?
Medical freedom vs. public health: Should fluoride be in our drinking water?
Misinformation campaigns increasingly target the cavity-fighting mineral, prompting communities to reverse mandates. Dentists are enraged. Parents are caught in the middle.
Misinformation campaigns increasingly target the cavity-fighting mineral, prompting communities to reverse mandates. Dentists are enraged. Parents are caught in the middle.
The culture wars have a new target: your teeth.
Communities across the U.S. are ending public water fluoridation programs, often spurred by groups that insist that people should decide whether they want the mineral — long proven to fight cavities — added to their water supplies.
The push to flush it from water systems seems to be increasingly fueled by pandemic-related mistrust of government oversteps and misleading claims, experts say, that fluoride is harmful.
“The anti-fluoridation movement gained steam with Covid,” said Dr. Meg Lochary, a pediatric dentist in Union County, North Carolina. “We’ve seen an increase of people who either don’t want fluoride or are skeptical about it.”
There should be no question about the dental benefits of fluoride, Lochary and other experts say. Major public health groups, including the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, support the use of fluoridated water. All cite studies that show it reduces tooth decay by 25%.
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I'm very much on the pro-flouride but it came up in a conversation with my coworker who won't drink tap water.
I said that in a country without universal healthcare, fluoride is free dental care. He said he agreed about the benefit to teeth but his concern was with what it might do to your body. He's a health nut but not a conspiracy theories and I was really thrown off and didn't have a counterpoint.
I just assumed it was fine because I knew fluoride is often found in water naturally...but...can someone with more knowledge tell me how they would have replied? I don't like speaking on things I can't back up with data so I just let it go
If the stupid motherfucker brushes his teeth twice daily, he's already introducing loads more fluoride to his body than any of the trace amounts they add into the public water system, which is still standards of deviation less than anything that would introduce fluorosis of childrens' teeth (since that's not possible for adults with developed teeth), let alone get to a level of toxicity for an adult.
Now, if he regularly consumes full tubes of toothpaste as a health supplement, then maybe that's a reason to be concerned about fluoride.
All right settle down, he's not a stupid motherfucker. He isn't advocating to remove it from tap water, he was just saying why HE doesn't drink tap. He didn't try to pursuade me.
Perhaps he's misguided on that but he is not the person you're probably picturing.
My friend is a doctor and he also doesn't drink tap but for him it's the other contaminates, not flouride
As someone who works directly with water treatment systems, at best he's an ignorant motherfucker. But good news: ignorance can be fixed.
Ignorant, sure, but he's not stupid. Flouride in water is not for people like him who already take great care of their teeth - it's for people who don't.
It's not stupid to avoid consuming something that doesn't benefit you. Like I know lithium is used safely to treat bipolar but I don't have bipolar so I wouldn't be stupid for wanting it filtered out. Like I said, he doesn't advocate for its removal - he just doesn't want to drink it himself
You ever hear the joke about an American tourist only drinking alcohol on a trip to Mexico, because you can't trust the water, and then someone asking them where they got their ice cubes?
On the other hand, at least back when I was there as an American teenager in the 90s, avoiding the water in Mexico was a good plan.
Parents: It's okay to drink the water in this town, we drove past a water treatment plant.
Me: Absolutely no way.
Guess who didn't regret saying "absolutely no way?"
No but that's pretty good
Well, the thing about your friend is that even if he were only drinking boiled well water or whatever, he's still consuming plenty of the metaphorical ice cubes.
I'd say that's the only real point the anti-flouridation crowd has, really. Even if they want to opt out, they can't. Even if their local water utility stops flouridation, anything shipped in will still have it, be it bottled water, frozen meals, anything that uses tap water in production, really.
The alcohol kills the microbes in the melting ice cubes. So it’s not a problem. Also, if you drink the kind of alcoholic beverages that require ice cubes you probably deserve the shits.
Yes he is. If you're unironically wary of fluoride you're a stupid motherfucker
I would've agreed with this a few years ago, but when you realize things can have subtle effects on our body that aren't easy to measure or readily apparent, you shouldn't fully trust something just because studies say it's safe. A study can't really show that "50 years of repeated exposure caused slightly more exhaustion," for example.
However, we DO know tooth decay is a major health risk for our whole bodies. Avoiding a maybe possibly slightly harmful chemical isn't stupid, but avoiding something that prevents known and documented dental harm and the effects that has on your entire body, that's just letting fear override rational thinking.
Ok buddy
There is non fluoridated toothpaste. Not that I would use it but it does exist.
Consider he might use unfluoridated toothpaste?
Toxicity does exist and is studied: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5805681/
You would kill yourself drinking too much water long before you'd have to worry about fluoride toxicity in the US. Part of our water treatment protocols also include reducing fluoride levels when they're naturally too high.
Dude, that's for the odds someone might have hypothyroidism, not at all related to toxicity.
And as noted by the authors:
"Hence, the application of standard household water purification (such as reversed osmosis, electro dialysis, activated carbon filter, and other adsorption/ion-exchange methods) is recommended for patients with hypothyroidism since they have a higher consumption of drinking water. The purification systems can help remove fluoride that interferes with thyroid functions."
So, if you have a family history of hypothyroidism, and you care at all about trying to avoid this incredibly common and easily treatable issue; use a water filter. It probably won't help since family history and regular exercise are much more highly correlated with the incidence of hypothyroidism, but sure, why not.
Also, and this is fun, they conveniently ignore the fact that the people drinking the most water (5+ cups group) have a lower adjusted-odds-ratio (OR) of hypothyroidism.
How about the part where the level of fluoride in the water being in the higher end of the spectrum (0.3-0.5 mg/L) gives you a *checks notes* oh yeah, 3.4% higher incidence rate of hypothyroidism. Right.
I'm having thyroid problems, and in trying to research iodine, I have found that fluoride can have a negative impact on thyroid function. This link is the best I can do on the subject, given that I'm not sure how to find much trustworthy information. It says that as long as iodine intake is sufficient, the fluoride shouldn't be a problem. But I'm finding conflicting info on what constitutes sufficient iodine intake.
If you consume any iodized salt you should be good on that, unless you have a medical condition that prevents your body from absorbing it properly. In fact people don't really get goiters anymore since the introduction of iodized salt which was done to prevent said goiters(a goiter is a swollen thyroid from lack of iodine intake iirc).
I was not using iodized salt at all. I think since "elevated" cooking has become so popular, I can't be the only one who was eschewing it (Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat straight up recommends avoiding it). I also don't eat much seafood. When I was diagnosed hypothyroid 25 years ago, I was told I had a goiter. And not told much else.
I'm just an internet rando, but I'd definitely recommend talking to your doctor about iodized salt intake or alternatives. Iodine was added to salt when they figured out people living in middle America away from the shorelines had severe iodine deficiencies and goiters were very common. That's all I know about it. I just like weird history tidbits like that
Interesting, thanks for the link! I figured there had to be something to it because he's a really smart guy and not in any way conspiratorial. His teeth are also in great shape so his way of living doesn't appear to be hurting anyone.
For the record, he was not preaching. I was just filling up from the kitchen sink while he used the filtered water thingy so it came up. He was talking only about himself when he expressed his concern
ah sick, as someone with vitiligo, this is yet another thing i should put on the extremely metaphorical back burner here.
(the partial joke here is that people with vitiligo have increased chances of having thyroidal issues due to the immune system or whatever the fuck, health is fun.)
Mercury is naturally occurring in water as well. That's not really a guide to go by.
idk probably maybe tell him to never put anything into his mouth that isn't IMMEDIATELY sterilized, before, during and after the process of entering your mouth for fear of possible contaminants getting into your body.
I know you're being sarcastic but I at least appreciate that you actually answered my question unlike the other replies.
im not being sarcastic tbh. If you're that concerned about something like fluoride in the water, you best be sure you never accidentally touch the ground outside, and then put your hand near your mouth.
There are so many more significant things to worry about, even being near someone who is sick is probably going to be more detrimental to your health.
but yes i am definitely being dramatic, it's fun :)
Ok, replace sarcastic with hyperbolic and I still appreciate it. Everyone else is just shitting on my coworker like he's MAGA flat earther. What I should have really said is that he consumes more flouride by brushing his teeth than he would drinking tap water
yeah, at the end of the day it's important to be capable of gauging the importance of something. Even more so than actually understanding that specific within the importance.