You might save money on dental treatment costs by simply turning on your tap and drinking water with optimal levels of fluoride—no matter what your age.
Researchers at the Indiana University School of Dentistry in Indianapolis studied patients of all ages who were members of a dental health maintenance organization and had access to dental care through their insurance coverage. Some patients lived in communities with an optimally fluoridated public water system; others did not.
Scientists found that patients with access to fluoridated water had fewer dental restorations and lower dental care costs during the five-year study period—and older adults benefited the most.
"Much of the focus of research on community water fluoridation has been on children," said Dr. Gerardo Maupomé, the lead author of the study. "There has been significantly less research on adults and even less on older adults. Individuals are keeping their teeth through adulthood into their older years. We need to study dental health through all decades of life."
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 67% of the U.S. population that receives water from a public water supply now drinks water with optimal fluoride levels for preventing decay.
Dr. Maupomé noted that although the study examined patients with dental insurance, many older adults, who are often retired, don't have dental insurance and need to protect their oral health.
"Community water fluoridation is a sound public health investment for people of all ages," he added.
To learn if your water is fluoridated, contact your local water supplier or the local/county/state health department. Additionally, many states participate in the CDC’s "My Water’s Fluoride" which lists fluoridation status by water system.
Save Money
Dental Health
Fluoride
self lucky in the USA. I think you got pretty lucky with your dentist prices. Take a look at Private Dentist Prices. There you can see you could be paying thousands of pounds (or dollars) for pretty simple treatment.
ReplyDelete“Second Thoughts about Fluoride,” reports Scientific American
ReplyDeleteNew York - January 2, 2008 -- “Some recent studies suggest that over-consumption of fluoride can raise the risks of disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland,” reports Scientific American editors (January 2008). “Scientific attitudes toward fluoridation may be starting to shift,” writes author Dan Fagin.
“Fluoride, the most consumed drug in the USA, is deliberately added to 2/3 of public water supplies theoretically to reduce tooth decay, but with no scientifically-valid evidence proving safety or effectiveness,” says lawyer Paul Beeber, President, New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation.
Fagin, award-wining environmental reporter and Director of New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program, writes, “There is no universally accepted optimal level for daily intake of fluoride.” Some researchers even wonder whether the 1 mg/L added into drinking water is too much, reports Fagin.
After 3 years of scrutinizing hundreds of studies, a National Research Council (NRC) committee “concluded that fluoride can subtly alter endocrine function, especially in the thyroid – the gland that produces hormones regulating growth and metabolism,” reports Fagin.
Fagin quotes John Doull, professor emeritus of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, who chaired the NRC committee thusly, “The thyroid changes do worry me.”
Fluoride in foods, beverages, medicines and dental products can result in fluoride over-consumption, visible in young children as dental fluorosis – white spotted, yellow, brown and/or pitted teeth. We can’t normally see fluoride’s effects to the rest of the body.
Reports Fagin, “a series of epidemiological studies in China have associated high fluoride exposures with lower IQ.”
“(E)pidemiological studies and tests on lab animals suggest that high fluoride exposure increases the risk of bone fracture, especially in vulnerable populations such as the elderly and diabetics,” writes Fagin.
Fagin interviewed Steven Levy, director of the Iowa Fluoride Study which tracked about 700 Iowa children for sixteen years. Nine-year-old “Iowa children who lived in communities where the water was fluoridated were 50 percent more likely to have mild fluorosis… than [nine-year-old] children living in nonfluoridated areas of the state,” writes Fagin. Levy will study fluoride’s effects on their bones.
Over 1200 professionals urge Congress to cease water fluoridation and conduct Congressional hearings because scientific evidence indicates fluoridation is ineffective and has serious health risks. Support them; write your representative here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2477/t/2782/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=21960
(or http://www.FluorideAction.Net )
“(G)enetic, environmental and even cultural factors appear to leave some people much more susceptible to the effects of fluoride,” writes Fagin
“What the [NRC] committee found is that we’ve gone with the status quo regarding fluoride … for too long… and now we need to take a fresh look,” Doull says, “ In the scientific community, people tend to think that its settled… But when we looked at the studies that have been done, we found that many of these questions are unsettled and we have much less information than we should, considering how long this [fluoridation] has been going on. I think that’s why fluoridation is still being challenged so many years after it began, In the face of ignorance, controversy is rampant.”
I thought the NRC report referred to in the prior comment was directed only at deciding whether
ReplyDeleteor not the EPA should mandate decreasing the current maximal fluoride allowed in drinking water. The report very carefully stated that it should not be applied to decisions with regards water fluoridation.
Even at a level four times higher than that used for water fluoridation only three health effects out of the literally thousands of issues evaluationed were deemed sufficiently compelling to lowerer the current maximum of 4 parts per million (ppm).
Readers can listen to the summary news conference which presented the National Academy of Science (NAS) report at:
http://www.nap.edu/webcast/webcast_detail.php?webcast_id=325
The committee also made it quite clear that the only evidence we have is that lowering fluoride level from 4 mg/L to below 2 mg/L will eliminate severe teeth fluorosis cases. Obviously this will also lower the accumulation of fluoride in bone. Whether this reduces fractures or the risk of skeletal fluorosis is not clear. There have been two recent cases of skeletal fluorosis in the US - one due to tea and another due to overconsumption fluoride toothpaste and fracture was noticed in both the cases.
To my knowledge there have never been a single report of such cases from fluoridated water . . this despite the fact that over 60% of the population consumes currently. And it has been in use for over half a century!! surely few other public health interventions have had such extensive experience.
Only by quoting in isolation or out of context or by quoting alleged experts who are in agreement can a fluoridation opponent draw a contrary conclusion regarding the NRC report.
Again. . the NAS report found that there was insufficient scientific evidence to recommend changing national water purity standards for all but three health issues and only one of these is actually a verified public health problem. This report is directed to a level of fluoride four times higher than used for water fluoridation. The interpretaion of both the NRC report and the Scientific American article discussing it are evidence that water fluordation is dangerous is simply not true.
I invite readers to listen to the whole news conference. . . try to listen or read the summary with a sufficiently open mind to draw unbiased and clear conclusions. This report is the basis of the Scientific
American article. Readers should not be mislead by isolated misleading quotations out of context.
I thought the NRC report referred to in the prior comment was directed only at deciding whether
ReplyDeleteor not the EPA should mandate decreasing the current maximal fluoride allowed in drinking water. The report very carefully stated that it should not be applied to decisions with regards water fluoridation.
Even at a level four times higher than that used for water fluoridation only three health effects out of the literally thousands of issues evaluationed were deemed sufficiently compelling to lowerer the current maximum of 4 parts per million (ppm).
Readers can listen to the summary news conference which presented the National Academy of Science (NAS) report at:
http://www.nap.edu/webcast/webcast_detail.php?webcast_id=325
The committee also made it quite clear that the only evidence we have is that lowering fluoride level from 4 mg/L to below 2 mg/L will eliminate severe teeth fluorosis cases. Obviously this will also lower the accumulation of fluoride in bone. Whether this reduces fractures or the risk of skeletal fluorosis is not clear. There have been two recent cases of skeletal fluorosis in the US - one due to tea and another due to overconsumption fluoride toothpaste and fracture was noticed in both the cases.
To my knowledge there have never been a single report of such cases from fluoridated water . . this despite the fact that over 60% of the population consumes currently. And it has been in use for over half a century!! surely few other public health interventions have had such extensive experience.
Only by quoting in isolation or out of context or by quoting alleged experts who are in agreement can a fluoridation opponent draw a contrary conclusion regarding the NRC report.
Again. . the NAS report found that there was insufficient scientific evidence to recommend changing national water purity standards for all but three health issues and only one of these is actually a verified public health problem. This report is directed to a level of fluoride four times higher than used for water fluoridation. The interpretaion of both the NRC report and the Scientific American article discussing it are evidence that water fluordation is dangerous is simply not true.
I invite readers to listen to the whole news conference. . . try to listen or read the summary with a sufficiently open mind to draw unbiased and clear conclusions. This report is the basis of the Scientific
American article. Readers should not be mislead by isolated misleading quotations out of context.
I thought the NRC report referred to in the prior comment was directed only at deciding whether
ReplyDeleteor not the EPA should mandate decreasing the current maximal fluoride allowed in drinking water. The report very carefully stated that it should not be applied to decisions with regards water fluoridation.
Even at a level four times higher than that used for water fluoridation only three health effects out of the literally thousands of issues evaluationed were deemed sufficiently compelling to lowerer the current maximum of 4 parts per million (ppm).
Readers can listen to the summary news conference which presented the National Academy of Science (NAS) report at:
http://www.nap.edu/webcast/webcast_detail.php?webcast_id=325
The committee also made it quite clear that the only evidence we have is that lowering fluoride level from 4 mg/L to below 2 mg/L will eliminate severe teeth fluorosis cases. Obviously this will also lower the accumulation of fluoride in bone. Whether this reduces fractures or the risk of skeletal fluorosis is not clear. There have been two recent cases of skeletal fluorosis in the US - one due to tea and another due to overconsumption fluoride toothpaste and fracture was noticed in both the cases.
To my knowledge there have never been a single report of such cases from fluoridated water . . this despite the fact that over 60% of the population consumes currently. And it has been in use for over half a century!! surely few other public health interventions have had such extensive experience.
Only by quoting in isolation or out of context or by quoting alleged experts who are in agreement can a fluoridation opponent draw a contrary conclusion regarding the NRC report.
Again. . the NAS report found that there was insufficient scientific evidence to recommend changing national water purity standards for all but three health issues and only one of these is actually a verified public health problem. This report is directed to a level of fluoride four times higher than used for water fluoridation. The interpretaion of both the NRC report and the Scientific American article discussing it are evidence that water fluordation is dangerous is simply not true.
I invite readers to listen to the whole news conference. . . try to listen or read the summary with a sufficiently open mind to draw unbiased and clear conclusions. This report is the basis of the Scientific
American article. Readers should not be mislead by isolated misleading quotations out of context.