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%.
Ok so seems clear to me there’s no real harm, but is there alleged benefit for adults? I’ve never had to rely on a municipal well so as a kid I had fluoride treatments and used fluoridated paste, but always thought it was just for kids. Is there benefit for me as a 40yo (with no cavities if it matters)?
Fluoride in water is the reason you have no cavities and will continue to have few to no cavities. Centuries ago you’d be lucky to have your teeth, the toothpaste definitely helps but the fluoride in water probably has a bigger impact on society overall
Sorry, you misunderstand. I don’t rely on a municipal well, and adding fluoride to private wells isn’t a thing AFAIK.
That’s why as a child I had fluoride treatments. It would have been easier to just get it in the water, but tradeoffs. My kids get them too.
I was wondering about the fluoride treatments being child only or whether there were adult benefits.
There are adult benefits, yes. Fluoride re-mineralises teeth (in contrast to cavities) to a super-physiological state. Meaning: If tooth enamel is in the beginnings of a cavity state fluoride will fight that process and possibly repair the enamel to a state stronger than before.
I thought it’s used instead of chlorine to decontaminate water
Water is disinfected with either chlorine, chloramine (ammonia + chlorine), ozone, or UV light. In North America chlorine is almost universal because it provides disinfection residual, which keeps water safe while it is travelling from the treatment plant to the consumer. Fluoride is added solely as a supplement to improve dental health.
Yeah, looks like I mixed fluoride with ozone
I thought fluoride in water was a bad idea because it can cause dental fluorosis when the teeth are still growing. Dental fluorosis is a condition that causes permanent stains on teeth and even make the enamel weak.
There’s not enough fluorine in the water for that.
If you used fluoride mouth rinse regularly in addition to having fluoridated water and using fluoride toothpaste, then yes, you could end up with fluorosis because that’s too much, but that’s something you have to do intentionally.
I have heard that stanis flouride causes this but not sodium floride.
I’d say that this is the kind of thing we elect leaders to decide and implement for us, but my leaders are a bunch of fucking morons.
The people who elect them are morons.
The only thing “bad” about flouride I know that is true is that it can lower DHT levels in your blood. I put bad in quotes because I don’t know what DHT actually does, but the conspiracy I’ve heard is that DHT is needed to dream and imagine, so by drinking fluoridated water you’re destroying your own creativity or whatever.
I always thought it was funny.
Yeah that’s #1 bullshit. DHT is a sex steroid and hormone that defines the male genitalia during the embryonic development. It builds out the entire male reproductive system right down to pubic hair.
Steroids always affect testosterone and that mostly affects men because they carry substantially more. So that’s sort of a clue in what area they target.
Creativity and “intelligence” are entirely abstract, human concepts. There is no one mechanism that governs them let alone a single hormone for that matter.
Also, just want to point out that our ancestors had literally perfect teeth. Perfect. Crooked and fucked up teeth is a modern infliction (no one really knows why). So just sayin.
Also, just want to point out that our ancestors had literally perfect teeth. Perfect. Crooked and fucked up teeth is a modern infliction
I would adore to see your sources on this
Happy adoring I guess
This isn’t some occult knowledge, a simple search will show many results concuring but here is one source:
In his book The Story of the Human Body, evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman writes: “The museum I work in has thousands of ancient skulls from all over the world. Most of the skulls from the last few hundred years are a dentist’s nightmare: they are filled with cavities and infections, the teeth are crowded into the jaw, and about one-quarter of them have impacted teeth. The skulls of preindustrial farmers are also riddled with cavities and painful-looking abscesses, but less than 5 percent of them have impacted wisdom teeth.”
“In contrast, most of the hunter-gatherers had nearly perfect dental health. Apparently, orthodontists and dentists were rarely necessary in the Stone Age,” he added.
…In 2015, researchers studied 292 human skeletons found in the Levant, Anatolia, and Europe that dated between 28,000 to 6,000 years ago. Their findings showed that people from more recent agricultural communities had smaller (and differently shaped) lower jaws compared to earlier hunter-gatherer people.
Aye I suppose a lot would be explained by the fact that the skulls they find are likely to be people who died in their 20s and 30s, as was the fashion back then
Cheers. It’s wild people still prefer to believe that fluoride makes them dumber and less creative lol.
What an absolute dumpster fire 🤪
So your argument is to return to pre-agricultural life in order to not have fluoride in our water supply?
I didn’t make any argument whatsoever, just provided a source.
A friend of mine who believed a lot of conspiracy theories told me it was bad because it calcifies your pineal gland. I called bullshit and googled it.
Turns out, it actually does. There was no proof at the time that this causes any sort of issues, but there it was. I was unhappy that they were actually right about something; I didn’t want to give them the idea that any of their other crazy ideas had any validity.
lol
Like telling chemtrail believers about crop dusters.
Pretty sure the pineal gland can just calcify with age, it’s not something to be worried about.
Well, DHT can cause hair loss in people that are sensitive to it. But it’s also an essential androgen for men. Overall, you probably don’t want to decrease the natural levels in men, but lots of different, entirely normal things can cause fluctuations in hormonal levels, so it’s likely not a large concern.
Just let the fuckers teeth fall out already. I am tired of so much effort being spent on people who clearly want to die. It is everything, from seatbelts to motorcycle helmets to vaccines to transfats to HFC drinks. They want to die? Let them. Maybe darwinism will save us from them maybe it won’t but at least we can all stop hearing about it.
I’m pretty sure people criticized Republicans when they cheered on the whole “let them die” thing…
A slicht problem with this approach is that for vaccines to be effective for anyone almost everybody has to be vaccinated…
Over enough time the only remaining people will be the vaccinated.
Hi, I’m shit at brushing my teeth long enough/regularly enough. I am glad fluride is in the water.
Hi I’m someone who has concerns about animal testing and is sensitive to SLS causing mouth ulcers/generally ruining taste for a while, unfortunately hippy toothpaste often lacks fluride for insane reasons. I am glad fluride is in the water.
Hi I’m a kid with horrible parents that neglect my dental care. I am glad fluride is in the water.
“Just let people hurt themselves” is never that easy.
We let people raise kids with religion
Could you be a little less online about stuff. If you’re lile 15 and just coming out of indoctrination with limited support around I forgive you, otherwise Jesus christ mate get a grip.
Sorry no one is buying your shit Xian
Do you talk to people like this in real life?
Did you enjoy your weekly pretend time this Sunday, Xian?
There are fluoride rinses you can buy for fairly cheap
I am once again saying: Why not hydroxyapitite? A form of calcium, same as our teeth/bones. It even has water management uses because it adsorbs other stuff like fluoride and lead, which actually makes finding info about its addition to water for the purpose of teeth health difficult.
Though it seems like hydroxyapitite water would also make fluoride toothpaste even more effective.
The mineral ions introduced during remineralisation restore the structure of the hydroxyapatite crystals. If fluoride ions are present during the remineralisation, through water fluoridation or the use of fluoride-containing toothpaste, the stronger and more acid-resistant fluorapatite crystals are formed instead of the hydroxyapatite crystals.
You can’t add hydroxyapatite to water because it’s not water soluble
I’m pretty sure the dentists love this.
I’m pretty sure if dentists are advocating for something that would make them less money in the long run, that whatever they’re advocating for is a good idea.
yes but we should do more studies on non-dental effects of water fluoridation.
There’s been studies about the negative effects it has on thyroid function for people with hypothyroidism : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5805681/
Thanks, I’ve only read about mostly bone disorders but it makes sense that fluoride might interfere with other halogens in the body.
I’d like to see people make decisions on cost benefit analysis based on medical research. Dental caries can lead to tooth infections which have a number of severe health consequences but it doesn’t mean there aren’t smaller concerns about fluoridation that should also be taken into account.
For what it’s worth I live in a country where the drinking water isn’t flouridated. It’s not a problem and it’s certainly never made the news. I think easy availability of dental care, especially in schools since children tend to not be great at taking care of their teeth, is a bigger concern.
Well, we have both location gated and time gated populations, so observational study should be fairly trivial.
I’m sure this has already been asked. I’m too lazy to read all comments. Um, why would the dentists be mad? Are they not all in it for the money?
I had a hard time making a sensible analogy so instead here is a photograph:
Sometimes, you really don’t need more customers.
I’m sorry to change topics, but is that place called Creamalot?
I scream for I Creamalot.
No, they’re not.
Yes. The answer is yes.
Imagine how cheap flouride would be if big aluminum lost that contract. Big Toothpaste at it again.
We should not be encouraging the least among us.
And yet the least among us is now the Republican candidate for president.
Again.
… Again.
I’m running for president?
There’s at least one person worse than you and he’s running for president.
Tom Hanks?
I tried fluoride-free toothpaste for one year during college. Came home for the summer with 12 cavities.
Fluoride works people.
