Fluoride in tap water

mech_2

Toothsmith wrote: »

There is a big difference between the fluoride release of cheap and dearer toothpastes. Getting a good brand cheaply is OK, but I would avoid cheap toothpastes. Similarly with brushes. A cheap brush can actually be quite damaging to the gums.

Do you have any evidence for this? All the toothpastes just say "sodium fluoride". Is there a special expensive kind of sodium fluoride which stays in the toothpaste when you spit it out? Doesn't that just mean it isn't going on your teeth?

As for toothbrushes, personally I can't stand the over-sized, over-hyped, over-engineered expensive toothbrushes. I'd rather have a nice simple one with no gimmicks that doesn't look like a Nike trainer. Gums be damned (I don't really believe that one either).

Toothsmith

I'd agree with the toothbrush bit. There are some very complicated ones out there nowadays, but the important difference between a really cheap one and a simple but good one will be the way the end of the bristles are rounded.

The cheap ones are very sharp and harsh, the dearer ones are much gentler.

As to the fluoride bit, yes, sodium fluoride is sodium fluoride, but how much of it is available to the tooth, and the type of medium it's held in can make a difference to how much of it actually becomes free fluoride in the mouth, and how long it binds to the tooth surface.

Evidence? - can't be bothered at the moment - take it or leave it!


EDIT :- 1450ppm is pretty much the optimum amount of fluoride to be in a toothpaste. (You can get higher ones, but only on prescription eg Duraphat toothpaste). It should say somewhere on the ingredients what the actual ppm of the toothpaste is.

As I said earlier, the actual 'stickyness' of the toothpaste can make a difference to how long the ingredients are held on the tooth, and I would guess that that would be an influence on the cost of the toothpaste. But by the same token, the marketing budget also has an influence on the cost!

tbs624

Toothsmith wrote: »

I must be softening, there wasn't that much there that I have issues with. It was reasonably accurate!

What can I say - must be the effect of the Bank Holiday Sun.

Originally Posted by tbs624
Here’s a start…one of the big three supermarkets has a pack of 2 toothbrushes at 14p and a tube of fluoride toothpaste at 29p. Now that's cheaper than the stuff that causes the rot in the first place. Maybe the sugar manufacturers could provide them free to those in need?

Toothsmith wrote: »

I'd avoid that.

So, people should avoid cheap toothbrushes and cheap toothpaste? They should really avoid the sugary junk food stuff too.

Unfortunately, if the water is artificially fluoridated then the rest of us can’t avoid the totally unnecessary cheap and nasty fluorosilicic acid.

My post did include the fact that getting kids along to the dentist and switching to a low sugar diet would make a huge difference.

Quite simply, parents have a responsibility to their own kids - I take care of my kids’ dental health, just as millions of other parents do with theirs. It’s part of being a parent. The water fluoridation issue seeks to make us all feel guilty about the children of a minority of parents who can’t be bothered. (I know that dental service providers say that it’s entirely down to poverty and social factors, but that’s offensive to those in the same circumstances who do take care of their kid’s teeth.)

If you physically harmed or inflicted pain on your child in any other way, the Social Services dept would be on your doorstep. Dose your kids up with sugary food/drink and fail to maintain the most basic hygiene, with the result that your kids’ teeth decay, and you’re not accountable: the health authorities’ easy answer is that the rest of society has to needlessly have artificial fluoride?

If cheap toothpaste isn't right then, as you say, they can get the branded ones at discounted prices, and then if they get along to the community dentist they can get their fluoride drops if they want/need them.Way back in this thread someone (poss Walmslei ?) suggested free toothpaste/brushes for those families who need them.

tbs624

Toothsmith wrote: »

EDIT :- 1450ppm is pretty much the optimum amount of fluoride to be in a toothpaste. (You can get higher ones, but only on prescription eg Duraphat toothpaste). It should say somewhere on the ingredients what the actual ppm of the toothpaste is.

As I said earlier, the actual 'stickyness' of the toothpaste can make a difference to how long the ingredients are held on the tooth, and I would guess that that would be an influence on the cost of the toothpaste. But by the same token, the marketing budget also has an influence on the cost!

You do say that you ‘re guessing there that the stickyness will be lower with a cheaper toothpaste, but I’d agree with you on the marketing costs.

Just looking, for example, at last week’s BDA Dental Conference in Manchester - big names come up amongst the list of sponsors and those lending their names to seminars. Product placement or what? Glaxo Smithkline appear on the list of Platinum Sponsors - now I know they have separate divisions, but is it true that one lot are pushing out the fluoride toothpaste and mouthwash whilst GSK’s other divisions flog ribena and lucozade elsewhere? ( and weren’t the BDA & ribena producers given a “slap” by the ASA for endorsing a ribena product as kind to teeth? ) We all know that “energy drinks” are supposed to be for use in sporting activity or during illness but the reality is that they’re regularly guzzled by kids, and isn’t sugary blackcurrant stuff in babies bottles part of the caries problem?

TS - I don’t want it to appear that I'm aiming at you personally as the only declared dentist on here - it’s just that there is so much within the water fluoridation debate that is not transparent. The BDA are broadly pro-fluoride (although some dentists aren’t) and so people should know to look behind all of this.

The phospate, sugar, and pharm companies are massive businesses with powerful lobbying networks. There is huge dissatisfaction by dentists with the NHS contract, and so there aren’t enough NHS dentists ( & the NHS is in crisis generally) so the Govt is looking for a cheap fix, without upsetting business giants, and that’s what water fluoridation is all about.

Moggles_2

Originally Posted by tbs624
There aren’t enough NHS dentists (& the NHS is in crisis generally), so the Government is looking for a cheap fix, without upsetting business giants and that’s what water fluoridation is all about.

Got it in one. :T

Why in the world would anyone adopt a practice which started in the United States way back in the 1950s and has since been quietly dropped by cities all over North America? (After 50-60 years of water fluoridation in the USA, tooth decay is still a national epidemic there)

Answer: poor dental health is a complex public health issue. The root causes are poor nutrition and inadequate dental hygiene. Sadly, our government seems more concerned with being seen to be doing something, than tackling the causes. It's looking for a cheap fix, which will save the NHS money and which doesn't upset big business. Well, excuse me. If there's genuine concern for everyone's teeth, why aren't there enough NHS dentists?

I believe fluoride should be given to those who request it, in a pharmaceutical grade tablet or topically applied to the tooth surface. I do not want fluoride in my drinking water, where there is no evidence it will do any good and where ongoing accumulation could harm other body tissues. Let everyone make their own choice.

Toothsmith

I wouldn't build your hopes up for any resurgence of NHS dentistry.

justpaper

what a great thread just want i was thinking about,..aswell,

http://www.uk-water-filters.co.uk/water_problem_fluoride.html

tbs624 , love the posts

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]london isnt fluoridated ??? is it ??[/FONT]

walmslei

http://www.dwi.gov.uk/consumer/concerns/fluoridemaps.pdf

Typically Birmingham, Newcastle and West Lincolnshire/East Yorkshire are your quoted areas. London (like most of the UK) has naturally occuring fluoride below 0.5ppm. Hard to have zero fluoride since Fluoride is the 13th most abundant element in the earths crust, and water is a very (very) good solvent.

By the way -most- Tea Bags (Black or Green in origin) will all contain much more fluoride than the tap water itself, upto several hundred times the amount quite possibly. Tea is one of the best plants at absorbing fluoride, and unfortunately and it is grown in areas where the soil is naturally fluoride rich, and long term pollution from industries such as Aluminium production were essentially unregulated (with regards to waste) for many years.

Coffee even, which is grown in other parts of the world to tea isn't ideal - Coffee is actually one of the most sprayed plants in the world in terms of chemicals due to it's value basically, and that includes fluoride based compounds! Might be OK with a genuine well researched green organic bean you roast/and grind yourself, but then you may well end up paying top dollar for such beans!

Avoiding fluoride is difficult. However, you can make choices if it is a concern (well picked coffee, younger leaf teas etc), which may well assist you in minimising intake.

tbs624

Thanks for the link Justpaper. The most equitable thing, however, is for our water supplies to remain unadulterated so that people do not have to buy an RO system (bearing in mind that many will be unable to afford them and those in rented accommodation are likely to have restrictions placed on their use of the property that preclude the fitting of an RO system.)

Regarding London, if you mean fluoridated by artificial fluoride/the wonder slurry, then Thames Water say ” Fluoride is not currently added to water supplies by Thames Water.”

If you are referring to naturally occurring fluoride, rather than the waste product, then Thames Water say that there is “a natural concentration of between 0.1 – 0.4 mg/l

walmslei wrote: »

By the way -most- Tea Bags (Black or Green in origin) will all contain much more fluoride than the tap water itself, upto several hundred times the amount quite possibly. Tea is one of the best plants at absorbing fluoride, and unfortunately and it is grown in areas where the soil is naturally fluoride rich, and long term pollution from industries such as Aluminium production were essentially unregulated (with regards to waste) for many years.

That's a useful point, and so in a nation of tea drinkers it's obviously a bad thing to be considering adding yet more fluoride to everyone’s drinking water - the magical 1ppm “safety” dosage that we keep hearing about is absolute tosh because everyone’s personal ingestion of fluoride from all other sources cannot be adequately verified. (AFAIAA many commonly prescribed drugs, including Prozac , also contain fluoride and the air is contaminated by fluoride emissions from the copper, iron, steel, aluminium and plastics industries. Fluoride is also one of the world's most widely used pesticides.)

walmslei wrote: »

Coffee is actually one of the most sprayed plants in the world in terms of chemicals due to it's value basically, and that includes fluoride based compounds!

Agreed - so let’s not add any more phosphate-related muck into our systems via fluorosilicic acid in the public drinking water.

walmslei wrote: »

Avoiding fluoride is difficult. However, you can make choices if it is a concern (well picked coffee, younger leaf teas etc), which may well assist you in minimising intake.

.....but we will all be denied a choice if the whole of the nation's drinking water supply has fluorosiliic acid dumped into it.

Toothsmith

Now you're just getting all emotional again!