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My wife comes from a country that did not add fluoride to the water. She has very good dental hygiene but here teeth are not in good shape for her age. That's o
by xupybd 3y ago
My wife comes from a country that did not add fluoride to the water. She has very good dental hygiene but here teeth are not in good shape for her age. That's one data point that I have observed.
- ux-app 3y ago>That's one data point that I have observed. As with many things genetics plays a big part. I neglected going to the dentist for 15 years and take just ok care of my teeth (brush at least once per day, don't floss). I was expecting bad news, lots of cavities, but my teeth are perfect. After some plaque removal, not a single cavity. Asked the dentist about this, he shrugged and just said "genetics".
- xupybd 3y agoI'm sure they do, but the dentists here have told her that lack of fluoride is her problem. She is using a night time fluoride paste to help.
- FollowingTheDao 3y agoIt might not be a fluoride, it might also be a lack of molybdenum. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2229411220160203 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/222941122016020...
- xupybd 3y agoInteresting, I didn't know about molybdenum. Her home city of Hanoi doesn't have tap water that the locals like to drink. Even after boiling I think it can taste bad. So she grew up with heavily filtered water or bottled water. I would guess her diet was lacking in many trace minerals from this.
- epgui 3y agoDentists don’t do genome sequencing, so they have no way of ruling out genetics.
- xupybd 3y agoSometimes you don't need to rule everything else out to be confident in a diagnosis.
- Auracle 3y agoIn this case it’s more “when all you have is a hammer (fluoride)…”
- xupybd 3y agoThe therapy appears to be improving her teeth. Is there something I am missing?
- Auracle 3y agoJust because a treatment works doesn't mean it's the best treatment, or is treating the "cause." To say that a lack of fluoride is the cause of their bad teeth is silly. Not eating sugar/acidic foods, Novamin, or a different set of bacteria in her mouth would also improve her teeth.
- xupybd 3y agoWe used a toothpaste with novamin in it. That didn't help her. She doesn't eat much sugar. She's 40 something kg and eats very healthy.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- eloisius 3y agoI’ve noticed the same thing living in Taiwan. They don’t fluoride the water, and in general people have pretty bad teeth with caries and decay that I never see in Americans in their 20s and 30s. The highly sugary diet probably doesn’t help either.