Many municipalities have been adding fluoride to drinking water for years, but now even some experts are saying it doesn’t do anything—anything good that is.
Fluoride has been added to drinking water since the late 1940s because of evidence that communities with a higher level of natural fluoride in their water supply had a lower incidence of dental cavities (see How Fluoride Works on Teeth). Soon, most North Americans were drinking fluoridated water and some European countries adopted the practice as well. Oral products with added fluoride became the norm… and the incidence of cavities went down. People drinking well water without fluoride were advised to give children fluoride drops while their teeth were still developing.
I’ve long suspected that the whole fluoridated water thing is a bit of a lie: if ingested fluoride only affects developing teeth, what’s the point in giving it to millions of adults? If direct contact with erupted teeth has the best effect, why not just use toothpaste with fluoride and leave it at that? Others were much more outspoken one way or the other, verging, it seemed, on fanatical, but now even respected experts are speaking up about the lack of effectiveness and possible health hazards of a steady diet of fluoride.
I’m now convinced that fluoride in water is a bad idea, and I’m on the fence about other fluoridated products. Toothpaste? Maybe. Fluoride treatments at the dentist? Maybe. Mouthwash and table salt? No.
What do you think? Start a discussion.
