Flouride In Water

DaveStaines33

@rafhelp:
I am a geochemist and was going to write you a long and turgid response explaining why fluoride in water is beneficial but I am concerned that you seem to take Wikipedia and Fox News articles to be gospel truth.

If you are worried about a tiny amount of fluoride then what will you do when I tell you that your body contains uranium? My old boss was one of many invited by the MoD to analyse soldier wee to ascertain whether the use of depleted uranium (uranium chemical symbol is U) in artillery shells would have long term health consequences. The conclusion? The U used in the shells did indeed find its way into the body in small quantities, but simply replaced the U that was already there (U is ubiquitous in the natural environment in trace quantities). In fact, the U used in artillery shells has a longer half-life than the U that is more abundant in the natural environment, and so the exposure of the soldiers to radioactive substances was actually slightly reduced.

Leif

tbs624 wrote: »

It would indeed be a shame but it *was* clearly highlighted, as in the part from your earlier post that I re-quoted, and which appears in in green. Does that perhaps make your own first comment, bolded above, seem ironic?

Err, you are criticising me for not answering questions that you addressed to someone else? This is getting too strange for me. Do you normally attack someone for not answering a question you did not ask them?

tbs624 wrote: »

The point was that you appeared to be criticising Torry Quine's reliance on "someone with letters after their name" and yet seeking to back up your own views by the purely anecdotal comment "I know a fair few people who died, or nearly died, after misdiagnosis by a doctor."

You don't seem to understand the distinction between knowledge, and the application of that knowledge by a practitioner. A doctor is trained in medicine, and absorbs a lot of information, which represents the current state of knowledge, and they learn new information on the job. However, being human, they are not perfect, and make mistakes. Thus a friend nearly died when a doctor refused for 6 months to examine him, by which time the cancer at the base of his spine was almost untreatable. A friend's father died prematurely when mis-diagnosed. Since you need things spelling out, the conclusion is that you cannot take a diagnosis as 100% accurate. Actually, if you knew anything about medicine, you would know that except in obvious cases, reaching a diagnosis is almost an art, requiring considerable skill and knowledge.

tbs624 wrote: »

How strange. There is no comment about your chosen "user name" in any of my posts.

Are you genuinely stupid? Here is your statement, which you even quoted:

"s/he much prefers waffle and generalisation, as evidenced in the reply to Torry Quine...."

:think: Mmmm. The name Leif is not uncommon e.g. Leif Erikson, the first European to set foot in America.

ed110220

tbs624 wrote: »

There is clear evidence which says that fluoride is *not* a nutrient

I think you are playing with words now as the issue isn't whether fluoride is a nutrient or not but whether it is harmful or beneficial.

Out of interest, is it just on fluoridation that you disagree with medical science, or do you dismiss the whole field?

I do agree that your argument against fluoridation has philosophical merit (ie against mass medication) but it has no medical or scientific basis and I freely admit I'm not interested in the philosophical aspect.

brook2jack

tbs624 wrote: »

and again
My bolding. Such "thinking" dates back to the 50s/60s and it does not become the truth because you say it twice.

Fluoride is not a nutrient.

"Fluoride is not an essential element for human growth and development..."
Source: European Commission 2011. Critical review of any new evidence on the hazard profile, health effects, and human exposure to fluoride and the fluoridating agents of drinking water. Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER).

“Fluoride is not in any natural human metabolic pathway.”
Source: Cheng KK, Chalmers I, Sheldon TA. Adding fluoride to water supplies. BMJ 2007

In context a poster was talking of having a fluoride intolerance "diagnosed" by an elimination diet , which is scientifically the gold standard for diagnosing intolerances.

An elimination diet has to be supervised by a doctor or dietician and foods containing a variety of substances are COMPLETELY eliminated from the diet and then gradually introduced. This process may take a few weeks and because of the difficulties of diagnosis of intolerances (80% of people in the UK who report themselves as lactose intolerant are actually not) it needs to be properly supervised and not used as a diy test.

The great difficulty is it is impossible to eat a diet free of fluoride, virtually every food and drink contains it therefore you cannot do what is medically understood to be an elimination diet. It is the fact that fluoride is ubiquitous in the human diet that has led and still leads to some claims it is an essential micronutrient such as the National Institute of health in America also in 2011 http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002420.htm.

That is why I was fascinated to know how this "elimination" diet was carried out what foods /drinks were consumed.

The arguments for and against water fluoridation are a seperate ,well discussed subject, but people are increasingly being diagnosed by a whole quack industry as having various intolerances and allergies that have no scientific basis and cause them unecessary difficulties following unecessarily restricted diets that do actually cause harm.

Incidentally anyone reading the EU report above will note that in Europe , even in areas with a high water fluoride content there is no evidence of any health risks associated with fluoride.

Torry_Quine

My intolerances were diagnosed properly following an exculsion diet which lasted many months and foods were very gradually introduced.

brook2jack

But what was excluded to "diagnose" fluoride intolerance?
You cannot exclude fluoride from your diet it is impossible and yet for the diet to be diagnostic fluoride has to be eliminated.