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The popular opinion is that we already get enough fluoride in our water.
by Raphmedia 10y ago
The popular opinion is that we already get enough fluoride in our water.
- monknomo 10y agoIf you're lucky enough to live somewhere where the crazies haven't defluorinated your water because "you're polluting our pure water with chemicals..."
- coopermor1 10y agoI don't think it's that clear - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3491930/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3491930/
- Drdrdrq 10y agoCrazies or people who actually care about environment? Fluorinating water must be one of the least efficient ways of doing this.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoIf you'll coordinate an effort to get florinated products into the hands of everyone in the US who can't afford them, I'll agree with you.
- mod 10y agoLike toothpaste? You actually think it's easier/cheaper to put it in the entire water supply vs handing out some free toothpaste?
- Retra 10y agoToothpaste isn't free. Producing toothpaste, putting flouride in it, and distributing it are all harder than putting fluoride in water and distributing it. Water is pumped to people's houses from central locations. Toothpaste has to be placed in tubes and shipped around on boats and trucks.
- thatcat 10y agoThe reason foridation has additional FDA requirements is because it's essentially a medicine, not a food supplement like iodine - which is an essential nutrient. So to justify the medication of entire communities at the exact same dose of a non-essential pharmacological product in an effort to ensure poor people receive enough flouride seems misguided. Calcium has a similar hardening effect on teeth and is present in water already - forming the scale you see in the shower Ca(CO3). Additionally, flouride stains your teeth [0]. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_fluorosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_fluorosis
- brassic 10y agoHard water has calcium and soft water doesn't. My city gets naturally soft water and we don't get scale. But we do get added fluoride.
- schwap 10y ago> Crazies or people who actually care about environment? The environment??? Fluoride, like many minerals, is naturally occurring in many water sources, just not (all) of the ones that are used for drinking water. Additionally, the concentration of fluoride for this purpose is minuscule (0.7 mg/L according to Health Canada).
- DiabloD3 10y agoThis comment is why you absolutely must test well water every 2-3 years. Up here in Maine we have a pretty bad fluoride issue in some areas, and a lot of people are not testing their well water, and ending up with fluoride poisoning.
- 2AF3 10y agoIt's not the role of government to brush my teeth.
- bduerst 10y agoIt is when tooth decay is a major public health concern.
- kakarot 10y agoActually no, it still isn't.
- dx034 10y agoI think it is, not for you but for your children. Too many parents don't take proper care of their children's teeth and this can cause non-reversible damages. Adding flouride is not the perfect solution but it can help to some degree.
- kakarot 10y agoThe problem is a combination of sugar over-consumption and bad dental hygiene. Those are the issues that need to be addressed. Adding flouride to our drinking supply does not address these issues.
- freehunter 10y agoIf you can't afford insurance, the government makes sure you get the health care you need to stay alive and healthy. So the government has a vested interest in making sure people stay healthy, because if a poor person gets sick, the government is paying for their healthcare. Not everyone brushes their teeth, not everyone can afford toothpaste. Everyone has to drink water, though, and fluoride in water causes no real health problems. It's a very quick win for public health, because otherwise the government would be paying to replace poor people's teeth.
- 10y ago
- Broken_Hippo 10y agoI don't think my water has fluoride, though.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- knicholes 10y agohttps://nccd.cdc.gov/DOH_MWF/Default/Default.aspx https://nccd.cdc.gov/DOH_MWF/Default/Default.aspx will tell you whether or not your water source should/shouldn't be flouridated if you live in the US.
- Broken_Hippo 10y agoThanks ... but I live in Norway. I'm not sure any of the water is fluoridated here. In the states, however, everywhere I lived had fluoride in the water.
- drakonandor 10y agoWater often has some levels of fluoride naturally.
- ptaipale 10y agoYes, and it always has had - one would expect that during the human evolution, the human body developed to expect and utilize variable levels of fluoride in drinking water. Nowadays we consume processed water which is clear of many impurities and tends to come just one source. The quality is extremely consistent, so we don't die of poisonings and contaminations. But then, the selection of where our drinking water comes from, and the purification processes may have the impact that the fluoride level is consistently lower than is good. Hence the possible need to add fluoride to water.
- ptaipale 10y agoWater is fluoridated in Norway if it needs be, i.e. the fluoride content of drinking water is moderated so that it is between 0.7 and 1.2 mg/l (i.e. around one part per million). https://sml.snl.no/fluoridering https://sml.snl.no/fluoridering
- BorgHunter 10y agoIf this is true, then I must be really out of touch. No one has expressed that opinion to me, nor have I seen it on Facebook in my News Feed (and I do occasionally see woo-woo stuff there). And I've certainly never heard a dentist say that. I'm not surprised that there are people who make this claim, but I would never have considered it "the popular opinion", or even a popular opinion.
- reportingsjr 10y agoThe US Dept of Health and Human Services actually halved their recommendation for fluoride in water about six months ago. The reasoning is apparently that people in the US now get enough from other sources such as toothpaste, mouth washes, etc [1]. Note that they didn't /remove/ the recommendation for fluoride in water. They just reduced the recommended amount. 1: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/04/27/402579949/feds-say-its-time-to-cut-back-on-fluoride-in-drinking-water http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/04/27/40257994...
- nappy 10y agoGetting too much fluoride is something that can occur as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_fluorosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_fluorosis
- reportingsjr 10y agoI am all too aware as I have mild fluorosis in some of my teeth! Although I think the biggest cause of this was semi regular fluoride rinses at the dentist when I was a kid.
- nikolay 10y agoIt's the most stupid thing, though. We also shower and cook with this water.
- tclancy 10y agoAgreed. It's sapping our precious bodily fluids. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2bSL5VQgM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2bSL5VQgM
- nikolay 10y agoWell, if you're okay with putting excess amounts of chemicals on your skin that are targeting your teeth although you may get enough from green tea, I'm not, and many others aren't either. I bought a chlorine filter for my shower, and all my dandruff and skin itching issues have disappeared, so, call it a conspiracy theory or whatever, but you can't beat the facts.
- zyxley 10y agoAnecdotes are not data.
- nikolay 10y agoI'm not a computer; I'm a human being, and I apply heuristics all the time. Maybe you're not. Anyway, data can be forged, and has been forged numerous times driven by corporate and political interest. What I do works for me, and works well - I look for fluoride-free products - you can stick with using agricultural waste in your water supply, but I stay off it!