Fluoride may be doing more harm than good

The LA area study indicated that cooking rice played a role in tap water consumption/exposure. Rice accumulates the ions as water is boiled.

edit: and the cohort was culturally enriched for rice consumption

edit again - sorry: The LA area study did not measure and was thus not able to control for air quality/pollution. Although they did measure and control for blood lead levels. This seems like possibly a structural flaw for conclusions on early cognitive development - I think the authors were quite reasonable in limiting conclusions in their discussion(s). IMO what is most suggested by the aggregate results is a more comprehensive study at population scale.
 
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I drink it. Unless things have changed, the purity standards for tap water is higher than it is for bottled. I do it because I don't care. I've drunk bad water all my life in various times and places and it's just not a big deal to me. I use it to make coffee with as well.

Hell, when I was a kid a bunch of my relatives had a well with a bucket. You'd have to draw a bucket and let it settle before you used a tin dipper to drink off the top.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I understand very well that there is no proof of causation. I also understand that there is mounting evidence that fluoride does cause lower IQ in children.
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These two sentences back to back are hard to understand together. They're pulling in opposite directions.

I read through the Malin study. My first big caveat is since the study was from May I haven't been able to find peer reviews which typically start appearing about 6 months after a study is published. That's what I generally rely on when evaluating this type of info. I'm not an expert so my take on the study is just above worthless.

Nevertheless, as a skeptic, here are some of my takeaways:
1. This study tried to measure behavior problems - ADHD, emotional disorders, mood disorders, etc. Its not attempting to evaluate IQ, so using it as a buttress to the Canadian IQ study is a misnomer from the jump.
2. My biggest issue is that it seems to support what we already know -- at very high levels fluoride is unhealthy. It doesn't try to evaluate or ascertain thresholds where fluoride consumption is healthy.
3. There is no evaluation of how flouride in tap water influences these results. The study participants are ingesting fluoride from all different types of sources. How does this show that fluoride in tap water should be removed? It doesn't.
4. Pregnant women represent about 3% of the population at any given time. Even IF you could demonstrably show fluoride in tap water at regulated levels is a direct cause for small negative outcomes in babies (which no one has done yet), you have a very large hill to climb to make it worth removing the positive benefits for the rest of the population instead of educating pregnant women on consuming tap water.

I could go on but who cares. I think what's a big cause for you jumping to this unsupported conclusion is the fact that yes fluoride at 3x 4x 5x what's in the water supply may lead to health impacts so when you read a study you're just seeing the headline blinking "fluoride bad". But at the levels in our water supply now its not.
 
Bobfripp said:
Please stop, and let scientists do their effing jobs. RFK Jr. is not a scientist, he's conspiracy theorist and hack, at best.
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Scientists have been doing their jobs. Over a dozen studies. Now it's our job to discuss the trade-offs of lower dental health versus lower IQ points. It's definitely not our job to ignore the science simply because some nut happens to agree with the scientists.
 
Paine said:
I grew up with well water. The tap water in Raleigh is a luxury. Consistently rated some of the best tasting tap water in the country. Bottled water so expensive and wasteful.
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I drank tap water my whole life. My grandparents and cousins out in the country had a well and I thought it tasted horrible, but my sister thought it was better tasting than our tap water. But my wife grew up in a town in Ohio where you couldn't drink the water. Nobody drank the water. I worked for a company with a distribution center there and they supplied old school water coolers with those big 5 gallon water bottles, and had signs cautioning visitors about drinking the tap water. You could literally see stuff floating in the water.

So in her mind tap water is not something you drink, it is something you wash your clothes and water your yard with. So we drink bottled water. I agree it is generally wasteful and environmentally horrible but it is a not a hill I am going to die on.
 
Milk and Cookies said:
These two sentences back to back are hard to understand together. They're pulling in opposite directions.

I read through the Malin study. My first big caveat is since the study was from May I haven't been able to find peer reviews which typically start appearing about 6 months after a study is published. That's what I generally rely on when evaluating this type of info. I'm not an expert so my take on the study is just above worthless.

Nevertheless, as a skeptic, here are some of my takeaways:
1. This study tried to measure behavior problems - ADHD, emotional disorders, mood disorders, etc. Its not attempting to evaluate IQ, so using it as a buttress to the Canadian IQ study is a misnomer from the jump.
2. My biggest issue is that it seems to support what we already know -- at very high levels fluoride is unhealthy. It doesn't try to evaluate or ascertain thresholds where fluoride consumption is healthy.
3. There is no evaluation of how flouride in tap water influences these results. The study participants are ingesting fluoride from all different types of sources. How does this show that fluoride in tap water should be removed? It doesn't.
4. Pregnant women represent about 3% of the population at any given time. Even IF you could demonstrably show fluoride in tap water at regulated levels is a direct cause for small negative outcomes in babies (which no one has done yet), you have a very large hill to climb to make it worth removing the positive benefits for the rest of the population instead of educating pregnant women on consuming tap water.

I could go on but who cares. I think what's a big cause for you jumping to this unsupported conclusion is the fact that yes fluoride at 3x 4x 5x what's in the water supply may lead to health impacts so when you read a study you're just seeing the headline blinking "fluoride bad". But at the levels in our water supply now its not.
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I actually care. I thought you brought up some great points. As for number four, I actually found that one pretty weak. It might be 3% of population that are pregnant at any one time, but it's 100% of the population that have been very close to a pregnant woman at one point in time. If fluoride is a problem for prenatal babies, it's a problem for everybody.

I also think that you're right that there may be safe levels of fluoride. But I think the studies do show that there are dangerous levels of fluoride and at least some communities in the United States are at that level in their water supply. There should be a national standard instead of a national recommendation. Followed by more studies on what is the right level.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Scientists have been doing their jobs. Over a dozen studies. Now it's our job to discuss the trade-offs of lower dental health versus lower IQ points. It's definitely not our job to ignore the science simply because some nut happens to agree with the scientists.
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A dozen out of how many on the subject? How many of those studies reference this and how many actually study it?
 
I lived in one house that had an artesian well in the yard. It was some of the best tasting water I ever drank.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Scientists have been doing their jobs. Over a dozen studies. Now it's our job to discuss the trade-offs of lower dental health versus lower IQ points. It's definitely not our job to ignore the science simply because some nut happens to agree with the scientists.
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pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Fluoride exposure and cognitive neurodevelopment: Systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis - PubMed

Many uncertainties still surround the possible harmful effect of fluoride exposure on cognitive neurodevelopment in children. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to characterize this relation through a dose-response approach, by comparing the intelligence quotient (IQ) scores...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

"The inverse association between fluoride exposure and IQ was particularly strong in the studies at high risk of bias, while no adverse effect emerged in the only study judged at low risk of bias. Overall, most studies suggested an adverse effect of fluoride exposure on children's IQ, starting at low levels of exposure. However, a major role of residual confounding could not be ruled out, thus indicating the need of additional prospective studies at low risk of bias to conclusively assess the relation between fluoride exposure and cognitive neurodevelopment."

MORE WORK NEEDS TO BE DONE! RFK Jr. is as biased as a person can be. The USA has bigger fish to fry than prioritizing what that maniacal, narcissistic nitwit decides is important.
 
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gtyellowjacket said:
There should be a national standard instead of a national recommendation. Followed by more studies on what is the right level.
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I would invert those two sentences but generally don't disagree. And there are a LOT more studies happening on this in recent years it appears. The work is happening. We don't need to make it a national priority of a new administration though. That's ridiculous distraction.
 
Milk and Cookies said:
I would invert those two sentences but generally don't disagree. And there are a LOT more studies happening on this in recent years it appears. The work is happening. We don't need to make it a national priority of a new administration though. That's ridiculous distraction.
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I actually disagree with one point. The national recommendation I think is about .7 mg/liter. The study mentioned that there's some pretty good evidence that IQ loss happens at levels of 1.4 mg or higher. Some communities have bumped it up to 4 mg/liter. I don't think it's a terrible idea to lower the amount to around .7 for all communities while we figure out what the right level is with those studies. To me, there seems like there's enough evidence out there that there may be a problem.
 
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gtyellowjacket said:
I've linked them.
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Like I'm going to waste my time reading the stuff you link. I've done it two or three times and the connections have been so tenuous that it just wasn't worth it. The bottom line, anyway, is that if you don't understand your point well enough to summarize, you don't understand your point.
 
finesse said:
Like I'm going to waste my time reading the stuff you link. I've done it two or three times and the connections have been so tenuous that it just wasn't worth it. The bottom line, anyway, is that if you don't understand your point well enough to summarize, you don't understand your point.
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You and I both know that any summary I gave, you would reject. If you want a summary, read the HHS summary that I linked. It literally talks about all but the most recent studies on the issue. It finds that there is some evidence but not conclusive evidence that high fluoride levels lead to lower IQ. The term they used was moderate confidence which is a three on a scale of four with four being the highest confidence.
 
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gtyellowjacket said:
Like most on here, I thought RFK was nuts for his policy to end fluoride treatment in public water supplies. I based this opinion somewhat on assuming that public health officials had done this research but mostly based on the Dr Strangeglove movie.

This columnist and physician felt the same way, but presumably didn't base her opinion on a 60-Year-Old work of fiction. But then she started looking into it and there's a real case to be made to end fluoridation. At this point I'm leaning towards ending it.

Sorry this is behind a pay wall but here are some quotes.

"...studies demonstrating fluoride’s impacts are well-conducted, peer-reviewed and published in prestigious journals such as JAMA. Earlier this year, the National Toxicology Program, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, concluded with “moderate confidence” that fluoride in drinking water is linked with lower IQ in kids."

"In any case, the possible increase in dental problems has to be balanced against the possible harm to the developing brain. If given the choice of what is more important to their kids — preventing cavities or saving IQ points — many people would probably choose the latter. Cavities can be treated, but effects on the brain are often irreversible."

".. countries in western Europe, many of which have long decided to stop public water fluoridation"

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From what I’ve read on the subject there is a good case for eliminating fluoride from water. But I also agree that it doesn’t seem to be a huge issue either like other posters have mentioned.

But I can tell everyone that people’s teeth are not bad because of lack of fluoride. People’s teeth are bad because their diets are terrible. It is a fact that tooth decay is caused by consuming processed carbs/sugar. Don’t believe me? Try eliminating those for a month and miraculously you won’t have any (or hardly any) plaque on your teeth. I’ve done that and it really works.

Studies that link tooth decay to poor health are misleading. It’s another “association” not “causation” thing in that if your diet was good almost all your health issues will go away.
 
Delta74 said:
From what I’ve read on the subject there is a good case for eliminating fluoride from water. But I also agree that it doesn’t seem to be a huge issue either like other posters have mentioned.

But I can tell everyone that people’s teeth are not bad because of lack of fluoride. People’s teeth are bad because their diets are terrible. It is a fact that tooth decay is caused by consuming processed carbs/sugar. Don’t believe me? Try eliminating those for a month and miraculously you won’t have any (or hardly any) plaque on your teeth. I’ve done that and it really works.

Studies that link tooth decay to poor health are misleading. It’s another “association” not “causation” thing in that if your diet was good almost all your health issues will go away.
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Truth. Believe it or not, people in the Middle ages had very few cavities. They had other dental problems because the grain that was most of their diet was ground on stones and there was some residual grit that ended up in the flour. Their teeth tended to wear down instead of get holes.

But when cheap refined sugar was introduced to the old world from the new world, cavities became a big problem.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Truth. Believe it or not, people in the Middle ages had very few cavities. They had other dental problems because the grain that was most of their diet was ground on stones and there was some residual grit that ended up in the flour. Their teeth tended to wear down instead of get holes.

But when cheap refined sugar was introduced to the old world from the new world, cavities became a big problem.
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Dying at 33 prevented a lot of them as well.
 
finesse said:
Dying at 33 prevented a lot of them as well.
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This is not correct. The high infant mortality rate skewed the average age downwards but if you got through the childhood diseases, you had a pretty good chance of making it to 50 or 60 as long as you didn't live during one of the black plague epidemics. If you were rich, you had a pretty good chance of making it to 60 or 70.
 
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