Fluoride in Drinking Water: This has raised its... - Thyroid UK

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Fluoride in Drinking Water

penny profile image
53 Replies

This has raised its ugly head again. Mass medication here we come…

theguardian.com/society/202...

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penny
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53 Replies
annnsandell profile image
annnsandell

Interestingly, I saw a private dentist leaflet recommending that you don't rinse your mouth after brushing your teeth and wondered if that amounted to eating Flouride.

helvella profile image
helvellaAdministrator in reply toannnsandell

The wording matters. NHS England advice is:

Don't rinse with water straight after toothbrushing

After brushing, spit out any excess toothpaste.

Don't rinse your mouth immediately after brushing, as it'll wash away the concentrated fluoride in the remaining toothpaste.

This dilutes it and reduces its preventative effects.

nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-bo...

Note: It does NOT say do not rinse.

Timetraveler67 profile image
Timetraveler67 in reply toannnsandell

Few years ago my dentist gave me a prescription for toothpaste with high flouride in, he told me to hold it in my mouth and not to rinse fo 15 minutes after brushing.

UrsaP profile image
UrsaP

Interesting as there was a bit of reporting on the main news a few months back, they were talking to members of the public asking them their thoughts on fluoride in their water. If I recall the Gov were talking about bringing the fluoride in water issue back into central gov, as had been down to local authorities for some time. I wonder if the local authorities were not adding it as Gov want?

There is natural fluoride in water, it does not need to be added.

It is hard now to find fluoride free toothpastes.

helvella profile image
helvellaAdministrator in reply toUrsaP

There is natural fluoride in water, it does not need to be added.

That rather depends on where you are! Some water has significant fluoride; some has next to none. My supply has:

Fluoride mg/l 0.0328 to 0.041

Which is far below any amount that would be added. (Typical rough calculations speak of "natural" fluoride being around 0.2 mg/l and being dosed to achieve 0.7 mg/l or a bit more.)

Some of the earliest work on fluoridation (and its possible benefits) is described here:

During the Second World War, children from South Shields, an industrial town on the river Tyne in north eastern England, were evacuated to the Lake District. The Senior School Dentist for Westmoreland noted that the evacuees had far better teeth than local children. Robert Weaver, a dentist working for the Ministry for Education, was aware of the work being carried out in America and had the fluorine content of South Shields water analysed. It proved to be around 1.4ppm, much higher than is present in most water supplies. He had North Shields (on the other bank of the Tyne) water analysed; this proved to have a fluoride content of 0.25ppm. In 1944 Weaver examined 1,000 children on either side of the Tyne. This study demonstrated much lower decay rates in both permanent and deciduous teeth in South Shields. This study was the first to describe the effects on the primary dentition.

nature.com/articles/4812863

That is not intended to say anything other than to put the level in my local water in the context of levels considered in respect of fluoridation research.

Phil865 profile image
Phil865

Here in the states fluoridated water seems to have a cult like following. Fortunately most people are not joining it. I question them just like any religious group trying to sell me their beliefs and they get very emotional.

Why do they insist on putting it the water supply? We flush our toilets with that, wash our clothing and cars, bath in it, water our lawns, etc. Very little of that public water goes inside of our bodies. And even that barely touches our teeth.

Why not just put it in bottles for our teeth? (they hate these questions)

And what's next in our water? Vitamins? Vaccines???

penny profile image
penny in reply toPhil865

Isn’t the elephant in the room coerced vaccination? If governments, and the populace, are fine with threatening the livelihood and liberty of people for the sake of an emergency use vaccine which does not stop infection or spread, then they will not balk at mass medication with fluoride, folate or whatever; it’s a matter of degree. Thus do dictatorships start for ‘your own good’.

nightingale-56 profile image
nightingale-56 in reply topenny

According to The Mail On Sunday today, they are also talking about adding Iodine too. Governments are downright dangerous.

helvella profile image
helvellaAdministrator in reply tonightingale-56

Did you mean this article?

Should we put iodine in salt to boost babies’ IQ? As folic acid is finally added to flour, experts now claim iodine is just as crucial for mother and child - if not more so

Malfunctioning thyroid in early pregnancy can halt development of foetus’ brain

And as more people adopt a vegan diet in the UK, the problem is set to get worse

Experts called for ‘urgent corrective strategies’ like adding iodine traces to salt

Is in line with WHO's recommendations to fortify all salt used in food processing

dailymail.co.uk/health/arti...

The headline makes me wonder at the writer. Degrees of cruciality seems a very peculiar approach to the issue.

nightingale-56 profile image
nightingale-56 in reply tohelvella

Yes, helvella , that is the article. Thanks for posting link for me.

Sharoosz profile image
Sharoosz in reply tonightingale-56

Yes they are dangerous but it's all 'for our own good' (or rather the good of their bank accounts.)

Timetraveler67 profile image
Timetraveler67 in reply toPhil865

Recently read there putting graphene oxide in uk water supply

Sharoosz profile image
Sharoosz in reply toTimetraveler67

Seriously?

Timetraveler67 profile image
Timetraveler67 in reply toSharoosz

Seriously - yes. When someone told me I went straight to google and found Out it’s true.

helvella profile image
helvellaAdministrator in reply toTimetraveler67

Has it got anything directly to do with thyroid?

Timetraveler67 profile image
Timetraveler67 in reply tohelvella

It’s too early to say but it’s good to know what’s going in our water supply, maybe in a few years time we can link it to Thyroide problems

penny profile image
penny in reply toTimetraveler67

A quick search on the topic turned up this as the first response:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/315...

“Exposure to graphene oxide at environmental concentrations induces thyroid endocrine disruption and lipid metabolic disturbance in Xenopus laevis”

helvella profile image
helvellaAdministrator in reply toTimetraveler67

There are 219 compounds in the EU's Candidate List of substances of very high concern for Authorisation.

echa.europa.eu/candidate-li...

And many, many thousands of less urgent concern.

It would bog down the forum for months or years if we start posting about every "maybe it affects the thyroid" compound.

penny profile image
penny in reply tohelvella

Quite.

Muffy profile image
Muffy

The late Dr Gordon Skinner always commented on the fact that once The Midlands had fluoride added to the drinking water, rates of hypothyroidism soared . Now Prof Whitty wants to poison the rest of the population. If people didn’t eat so much , sweet, sugary rubbish, they wouldn’t have rotten teeth.

tattybogle profile image
tattybogle in reply toMuffy

absolutely . if they want to reduce tooth decay , they could make all sweety/fizzy drinks manufacturers package then in standard dark green packets with big gruesome pictures of rotted teeth on the front (like they do for tobacco) And introduce teeth cleaning lessons with free electric toothbrushes that play you a tune if you brush properly into nursery schools . I'm pretty sure the reason my teeth are mostly buggered now , was eating sweets in secret on the way home from school and only paying cursary attention to pretending to clean them properly .. not 100% certain but i think the bit of nottingham i grew up in did have flouride added .. but it didn't save my molars from loads of filling in my teens... which of course only last about 15yrs before you have to redo them .. bigger.

penny profile image
penny in reply totattybogle

Ah, money! It’s on a par with cigarettes. As Prof Ioannidis said, if you want to save lives ban tobacco. The ‘sugar’ lobby is very powerful, as is the tobacco lobby. Money trumps health every time. Sadly we are seeing a growth in ‘nanny state’ power dictating our every action.

I’m not sure that tooth decay is linked to poverty, rather it is linked to bad parenting. Toothpaste is very cheap, as is milk.

tattybogle profile image
tattybogle in reply topenny

I'd like to blame my parent's but ,i really can't ... they didn't buy us sweets or pop , and always told up us to brush our teeth morning and night .. so i have to take the blame myself ... i nicked the small change , i bought the sweeties , and the pop, and i lied about having cleaned my teeth .. my brother and i even used to walk into the bathroom and wet the tooth brush under the tap. so we wouldn't get found out for not brushing them... so im my case it really is my own fault. But i can now be very effective as a horrible warning to kids who don't brush properly ,,, unlike my mum who had excellent teeth .. maybe that's where she went wrong .. her teeth were so good, i thought everybody's teeth would last till they were over at least over 50 .. and when you're kid you can't imagine yourself being 'over 50' so 'who cares what happens then' ....oops . got that wrong then .

I'm now 55 and to quote Pam Ayers "how i wish i'd looked after me teeth"

UrsaP profile image
UrsaP in reply totattybogle

Some of it has to be genetic. I (touch wood) at almost 60 have a fairly decent set of my own teeth. My mother had lost all hers by the time she as 30. A sister lost all hers following pregnancy same as Mam - can’t remember the name of the condition

As kids, and a big family, sweets and fizzy drinks were for ‘birthday parties’ which usually meant tea included cake and pop.

I try to avoid fluoride in toothpastes etc.

Jenny583 profile image
Jenny583 in reply totattybogle

An excellent example of "If you can't be a good example, you will have to be a terrible warning" if ever there was one 😅

salty6 profile image
salty6 in reply totattybogle

You made me smile - I too have hardly any molars as the school dentist liked to pull teeth he had never learnt about fillings. So along with all the other stuff the nanny governments provide we should all be fine - if we live long enough. But I really want the rotten teeth pictures on the sugary drinks and food please.

penny profile image
penny in reply tosalty6

Mercifully I stopped an over-enthusiastic private dentist from removing my molars. They are still there and not giving any trouble more than 30 years later. I was lucky that we had a wonderful dentist as a child and my mother used to arrange a picnic for us after the visit so we were always enthusiastic about going. I remember tins of strawberry toothpaste, given as a treat by the dentist.

penny profile image
penny in reply topenny

Back to the main theme…fluoride in drinking water is a no-no.

June25 profile image
June25 in reply topenny

I'm going to have to play devil's advocate here. I wish they had put fluoride in the water when I was growing up. That way I might not have ended up with lifelong dental problems. It's right what you say, that kids eating sweets and not brushing their teeth is a bad parenting problem, but my mother didn't know any better, and neither did I. So I guess what I'm saying is that ignorance and bad parenting haven't gone away, so at least putting fluoride in the water could mitigate the worst of the damage.

penny profile image
penny in reply toJune25

But in mitigating one problem, which could be overcome by using toothpaste, a much, much bigger problem is created which cannot be cured by an OTC preparation and does not involve choice.

June25 profile image
June25 in reply topenny

Wel I'm between a rock and a hard place about this. As a person with thyroid issues of course I don't want fluoride in the water, but the dental health of kids in this country is a big problem too. Toothpaste has been on the shelves for a long time and it hasn't overcome it yet.

penny profile image
penny in reply toJune25

One wonders how many people will be affected negatively by the addition of fluoride. Having suffered for years with untreated hypothyroidism and, like many, know how awful that is would the devastation of the lives of 100,000 people be compensation for the damage of children’s teeth; would 10,000 or 1,000? Perhaps it would be better to ensure that children use toothpaste every day, perhaps in a school setting after their 1/3 pint of milk.

I have just watched a documentary about the role played in the holocaust by nurses and their conviction that the murder of children and adults was ‘for the common good’, and therefore acceptable, overseen by the medical profession. Are we slipping into this way of thinking over mass medication?

June25 profile image
June25 in reply topenny

I suffered for 30 years with untreated hypothyroidism, but I've also suffered for 60 years with dental problems created before I was 12 years old. They are both awful. I agree that fluoride in the water is far from an ideal solution.

alchemilla12 profile image
alchemilla12 in reply toJune25

but why should the whole population pay for the ignorance of a few? fluoridation of water because some parents are too stupid or feckless to know the dangers of too much sugar should not be made my problem.Where are my human rights not to be medicated via drinking water?

penny profile image
penny in reply toalchemilla12

I don’t think that human rights come into it. It seems to be that there are mass medications afoot which bode ill for the population as a whole but bode well for balance sheets.

June25 profile image
June25 in reply topenny

Unfortunately I think you are right, and it strikes fear into my heart, because a rational approach in this case is not going to cut it.

I think I just lost this debate with you and alchemilla .

But very worthwhile to arrive at the nub of it, IMHO.

penny profile image
penny in reply toJune25

I don’t think that you ‘lost the debate’ at all; it is a one-sided war. It doesn’t matter what the data is or the numbers opposing tptb are going ahead. It is a headline grabber - ‘we’re saving children’s teeth!’ No mention of the harms caused to thousands of other people. Is fluoride ‘soma’ for the masses? More expense to buy a device to remove fluoride from water and I already self-fund my tests and thyroid medication.

June25 profile image
June25 in reply toalchemilla12

Where are the human rights of children, who don't have a choice, not to grow up with a mouth full of rotten teeth by the time they are 12 years old? Human adult teeth start to grow in after about the age of 5-6 years, when children in this country are not yet educated and/or in the position to take responsibility for their own teeth and their own diet.

Look, being hypothyroid myself I don't want fluoride in my drinking water. What I'm saying is that there needs to be a solution for both sides of the argument that doesn't sacrifice one for the other. If you just stand up for your own side it's not the way to win this IMHO. There has to be recognition of the deplorable state of the teeth of the population of this country, and proposals put forward for an alternative to fluoride in the water which are pragmatic and could actually be achieved. Until this problem is realistically addressed, the spectre of fluoride in the water will continue to hang over us all.

penny has made a stab at doing this, which I support.

alchemilla12 profile image
alchemilla12 in reply toJune25

there needs to be a more specifically targeted action on the state of childrens teeth rather than a blanket sweep across the whole population.Where do you stop then -should the water have statins or HRT added to protect certain sectors of society?? Im not just standing up for MY side Im standing up for the rights of all members of society not to be medicated against their will

June25 profile image
June25 in reply toalchemilla12

Yes it is YOUR side. It's what YOU think is best for all members of society. I wish you'd just come clean and admit it's what you think is best for YOU, and leave off telling everybody else what's best for them.

alchemilla12 profile image
alchemilla12 in reply toJune25

. Wanting people to have freedom of choice is wrong is it?

penny profile image
penny in reply toalchemilla12

Judging from the state of affairs at the moment, it obviously is!

alchemilla12 profile image
alchemilla12 in reply topenny

too true! its a scary world at the moment for free choice I think

Kenley profile image
Kenley

Fluoride is the last thing you need when you have an under-active thyroid. I always buy fluoride free toothpaste. It is in tea so difficult to avoid completely but I am appalled at the thought that it will be added to our water. Where there is fluoride added, the levels of hypothyroidism in the population is higher. Fluoride used to be used as a treatment for hyperthyroidism in the past. I wrote to my MP some years ago when there was discussion of adding it. We have a right not to be mass medicated. We must campaign against this.

CheetahLover profile image
CheetahLover

I’m really concerned about what’s being added to the water, so I’ve invested in a water distiller and added a filter to my shower. The visible residue in the filters is truly shocking!

Rlfan profile image
Rlfan in reply toCheetahLover

Would you mind telling what water distiller and shower filter you use please.

CheetahLover profile image
CheetahLover in reply toRlfan

Yes, of course :-) The filter shower-head came from showery dot co dot uk. I’ve had a couple from there. They also sell replacement filter ’balls’ at a reasonable price. The bonus is it also improves intensity of water flow, as well as filtering out the nasties. The water distiller is made by Make Water Pure - make sure you get a glass jug, never plastic - and this brand is on Amazon. There are other, cheaper models, but this one was recommended to me as being really robust.

Rlfan profile image
Rlfan in reply toCheetahLover

Thank you

CheetahLover profile image
CheetahLover in reply toRlfan

No worries at all; happy to help x

j9j8j7 profile image
j9j8j7

When I was little, the dentist recommended fluoride tablets but they made me throw up. Later, I went to university in a city where they added fluoride to the water and it made me feel so ill I had to drink bottled water (and then I felt just fine, so it was definitely the water). I KNOW I don't get on with ingested fluoride and it makes me furious that they want to add it to the water supply. If it was an issue of tooth health, surely making fluoride toothpaste/tablets/whatever available for free would be a more effective option. For the record, I have never had a cavity despite my lack of fluoride. I suspect it is because I drink WATER and not fizzy or sugary drinks and I brush my teeth properly.

Jow11 profile image
Jow11

There is a petition against water fluoridation, please sign and share petition.parliament.uk/peti...

penny profile image
penny in reply toJow11

Done.

Jow11 profile image
Jow11 in reply topenny

Thanks.

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