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posted by Fnord666 on Friday February 21 2020, @04:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the something-to-sink-your-teeth-into dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Exposing teeth to excessive fluoride alters calcium signaling, mitochondrial function, and gene expression in the cells forming tooth enamel -- a novel explanation for how dental fluorosis, a condition caused by overexposure to fluoride during childhood, arises. The study, led by researchers at NYU College of Dentistry, is published in Science Signaling.

Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral that helps to prevent cavities by promoting mineralization and making tooth enamel more resistant to acid. It is added to drinking water around the world -- the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends a level of 0.7 parts per million -- and all toothpastes backed by the American Dental Association's Seal of Acceptance contain fluoride. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) named water fluoridation one of 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century for its role in reducing tooth decay.

While low levels of fluoride help strengthen and protect tooth enamel, too much fluoride can cause dental fluorosis -- a discoloration of teeth, usually with opaque white marks, lines, or mottled enamel and poor mineralization. Dental fluorosis occurs when children between birth and around nine years of age are exposed to high levels fluoride during this critical window when their teeth are forming, and can actually increase their risk of tooth decay. A survey by the CDC found that roughly 25 percent of the U.S. population examined (ages 6 to 49) show some degree of dental fluorosis.

"The benefits of fluoride for oral health considerably outweigh the risks. But given how common dental fluorosis is and how poorly understood the cellular mechanisms responsible for this disease are, it is important to study this problem," said Rodrigo Lacruz, PhD, associate professor of basic science and craniofacial biology at NYU College of Dentistry and the study's senior author.

Francisco J. Aulestia, Johnny Groeling, Guilherme H. S. Bomfim, Veronica Costiniti, Vinu Manikandan, Ariya Chaloemtoem, Axel R. Concepcion, Yi Li, Larry E. Wagner, Youssef Idaghdour, David I. Yule, Rodrigo S. Lacruz. Fluoride exposure alters Ca2 signaling and mitochondrial function in enamel cells. Science Signaling, 2020; 13 (619): eaay0086 DOI: 10.1126/scisignal.aay0086


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Friday February 21 2020, @06:29PM (22 children)

    by RS3 (6367) on Friday February 21 2020, @06:29PM (#960764)

    I have a good friend whose mom is also a good friend. The mom is an RN, always been into natural foods where reasonable, railed against all kinds of chemicals that eventually have been exposed as bad for you, including fluoride.

    In fact, she gets so annoyed with fluoride she won't even talk about it, she just gets mad at the whole topic, how it's been advertised so much, etc.

    BTW, she's 101 and still has all of her own teeth, and as far as I can tell, they look perfect.

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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Friday February 21 2020, @07:00PM (21 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday February 21 2020, @07:00PM (#960788) Journal

    BTW, she's 101 and still has all of her own teeth, and as far as I can tell, they look perfect.

    Good think nobody listened to her and there was flouride in her water, eh?

    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday February 21 2020, @07:48PM (20 children)

      by RS3 (6367) on Friday February 21 2020, @07:48PM (#960811)

      How did fluoride get into her water?

      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday February 21 2020, @08:03PM (18 children)

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday February 21 2020, @08:03PM (#960812) Journal

        Most tapwater in the US is fluoridated. [cdc.gov]

        So unless she's got her own well or something it's highly likely she's been drinking fluoridated water.

        • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday February 21 2020, @08:16PM (12 children)

          by RS3 (6367) on Friday February 21 2020, @08:16PM (#960817)

          She has always had her own private water well.

          In fact the US Census says approximately 42 million people drink wellwater. https://www.circleofblue.org/2018/world/infographic-household-wells-in-the-united-states/ [circleofblue.org]

          Also remember that many people, approximately 1/3 in USA, only drink bottled spring water. No fluoride.

          • (Score: 5, Informative) by Booga1 on Friday February 21 2020, @08:53PM (4 children)

            by Booga1 (6333) on Friday February 21 2020, @08:53PM (#960833)

            Private well water doesn't automatically mean it's not getting fluoridation through natural groundwater processes. [wikipedia.org]
            This is something that should probably tested for as part of the process of installing a well in some parts of the US. This map [wikimedia.org] shows where this happens in various regions of the world. Original source(PDF download): National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia) (2007). NHMRC Public Statement: Efficacy and Safety of Fluoridation, Page 19 [nhmrc.gov.au]

            • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday February 21 2020, @09:01PM (3 children)

              by RS3 (6367) on Friday February 21 2020, @09:01PM (#960839)

              Thank you Booga1. Thank you for that map- very interesting and informative. We're not anywhere near one of the natural fluoride zones.

              I suspected there could be some natural fluoridation in groundwater, but didn't do any research. I wonder if fluoridation remains in water long after being in septic tanks, cesspools, sand mound, leach fields, etc. IE, can it get into groundwater eventually?

              • (Score: 2) by Booga1 on Friday February 21 2020, @10:00PM (2 children)

                by Booga1 (6333) on Friday February 21 2020, @10:00PM (#960850)

                That is a very interesting question! I'm sure it's possible, but probably varies a huge amount depending on soil types and way more variables than I can think of.
                All it would take to find out about any particular well is to just send off a sample for testing, but I doubt it'd be worth the hassle of sending it into a lab. Looks like there are various test kits available for all sorts of things, fluoride included. Can't vouch for any of them though, I've never used any at all. Might be worth testing if you have a known level of fluoride in water available to use as a control.

                • (Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Saturday February 22 2020, @01:48AM (1 child)

                  by RS3 (6367) on Saturday February 22 2020, @01:48AM (#960895)

                  Yeah, I doubt it's part of a standard water test. Lazy me. I've done some waterwell / hydrogeology work, but rarely had testing done. But I know people. I'll ask them someday.

                  Normally septic systems and wells are kept apart now. Generally septic systems involve the surface layer of soil (unconsolidated overburden), and water wells get water from under "bedrock", which can vary greatly in depth. "Shallow wells" and old hand-dug ones just went down to bedrock or less, and there was often some water there. In days of yore, before so many humans, human and animal waste, industrial waste, etc., the shallow wells were okay. Unless animals fell in and died.

                  Even for modern "deep" wells, not that long ago there weren't good rules for placement, depth, well grouting / sealing. And all of that could be moot depending on the geology. You could have a drain field 300' away from a well, but rock strata could allow rapid flow from the drain field into the aquifer. Bioactivity might have resolved itself, but chemicals, including pharmaceuticals, could still be intact. And who knows what the various combinations of the drugs will do to people. And that dovetails into the endless opinions and arguments about various trace chemicals and their impact on humans, and who's more susceptible, bla bla bla.

                  A cousin of mine has a son who was very ill, getting worse and worse. All kinds of medical tests, theories, treatments, etc. She's a little bit into holistic stuff, maybe worries too much about this and that. For whatever reason she got hair tests done and they found uranium! It was in their water well! Proper chelation and other blood filtering and he's doing well now. He may be in for trouble in the future.

                  Somewhere I was just reading about waterwell testing, how it's not being done enough, and not covering enough potentially harmful chemicals. So at some point it's probably good to get a wide-range test done.

                  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Booga1 on Saturday February 22 2020, @10:39AM

                    by Booga1 (6333) on Saturday February 22 2020, @10:39AM (#960991)

                    Around here, water well testing laws were recently changed. Supposedly all the tests required, environmental reviews, and all that have raised the cost of just the testing to over $20,000. Even after all that money, you could discover you can't drill a well. People who bought land in rural areas complained it made their plots of lands worthless since that would mean they don't even know if they can use the land any more.

                    Unfortunately, it looks like these tests are now truly necessary because of what we've found out about the local air force bases. They have been using perfluorinated fire retardants [militarytimes.com] that have polluted water sources around them. Some water with these chemicals are miles away from the bases because they've been doing fire fighting drills there for so long and some drills were done in remote areas.

          • (Score: 2) by dry on Monday February 24 2020, @03:09AM (6 children)

            by dry (223) on Monday February 24 2020, @03:09AM (#961697) Journal

            I was looking at a water bottle yesterday, it listed a non-zero fluoride level. I was actually looking for the origin and didn't pay much attention but assuming you have laws about labeling bottled water like here, you can verify how much fluoride is in the various brands of water.

            • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday February 24 2020, @05:09AM (5 children)

              by RS3 (6367) on Monday February 24 2020, @05:09AM (#961726)

              Here are some numbers: https://fluoridealert.org/content/bottled-water/ [fluoridealert.org] I would expect it to vary, maybe wildly.

              • (Score: 2) by dry on Monday February 24 2020, @07:10AM (4 children)

                by dry (223) on Monday February 24 2020, @07:10AM (#961743) Journal

                Yes, generally looks low but not zero so it's hard to say how much fluoride a bottled water drinker gets.

                • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday February 24 2020, @07:27AM (3 children)

                  by RS3 (6367) on Monday February 24 2020, @07:27AM (#961746)

                  Yeah, and I'm thinking since those are all over the map, it could vary pretty wildly. You'd pretty much have to test each bottle.

                  I'm not up on the latest in sensor technology, but I think I remember reading about very tiny spectral analysis sensors or something similar. So maybe someday it could be feasible to test each bottle with a home tester. But I'm not sure why someone would care too much unless they had a problem with fluoride and needed to minimize it.

                  • (Score: 2) by dry on Monday February 24 2020, @04:37PM (2 children)

                    by dry (223) on Monday February 24 2020, @04:37PM (#961878) Journal

                    Here, the bottled water says what is in it. I found a bottle, on the main label it mentions 97ppm mineral salts, 0ppm fluoride and under the nutrition part of the label, most stuff like sugar, protein and fat are zero, calcium is 10mg, 1% and in really small print,
                    HCO3-56, Ca-22, Cl-17, SO4-4, Na-4, K-1, NO3(N)-0.3, As-0, Pb-0, Cu-0, Zn-0, F-0. All numbers are ppm.
                    People might care about some of these numbers for the opposite reason, wanting some fluoride though generally people are likely to believe conspiracy theories and go for zero minerals.

                    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday February 24 2020, @05:30PM (1 child)

                      by RS3 (6367) on Monday February 24 2020, @05:30PM (#961900)

                      That's awesome. I'm in USA and afaik, nothing is required on the label. A few brands list things like calories, sodium, etc., but again, afaik it's not required. I think they're supposed to say where the water came from, but it's usually vague at best. Some things give a toll-free phone number, but who knows what you'd really find out.

                      I'm looking at a water bottle by Nestlé-owned "Deer Park" that lists 9 different source towns and states, and label says "100% Natural Spring Water". Who knows what's really in that bottle.

                      • (Score: 2) by dry on Monday February 24 2020, @07:31PM

                        by dry (223) on Monday February 24 2020, @07:31PM (#961949) Journal

                        Yes, Canada seems to have better labeling. This bottle was Nestlé-owned "Pure Life" pure spring water bottled in Hope BC. They all seem to say where they were bottled rather then a list and if worth bragging about, more info on the source. This bottling plant has been in the news as an example where Nestlé gets its water for free, before the town gets it. Our problem is that due to NAFTA (not sure about NAFTA2) if we start charging (or regulating too much) for water, we have to sell it to America too, with no limits.

        • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday February 21 2020, @08:38PM (1 child)

          by RS3 (6367) on Friday February 21 2020, @08:38PM (#960827)

          BTW, the CDC link you provided was for 2012, when "Percentage of US population receiving fluoridated water = 67.1%"

          In 2016, "Percentage of US population receiving fluoridated water = 62.4%"

          An obvious drop. Can't logically speculate on 2020, of course.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:54AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:54AM (#961301)

            In 2016, "Percentage of US population receiving fluoridated water = 62.4%

            Can't logically speculate on 2020, of course.

            Damn near 100%.

        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @10:56PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @10:56PM (#960864)

          I don't drink tap water. I drink the water from the water stores that you fill up that have been through all those large filters (it's DI or close to DI water). It has high electrical resistance (ie: if you used an analog ohm meter to test the conductance the conductance is very low, sometimes hard to detect even whereas tap water causes the needle to jump over half way) so it doesn't really have ions in it. It costs like $.30 cents a gallon.

          We also sometimes use that zero water and we test it regularly to make sure the electrical conductivity is low so that we can replace the filters when necessary. That way there are few ions in it. It turns out to be slightly more expensive than going to the store and filling up the water but the price of the water itself is often negligible compared to the hassle of having to actually go to the store and the value of our time doing so. $ We tried Britta water but if you test it it has ions when compared to zero water.

          • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday February 22 2020, @01:58AM (1 child)

            by RS3 (6367) on Saturday February 22 2020, @01:58AM (#960900)

            Very interesting. Is it a logical following that low ion water means low contaminant?

            Some years ago I worked building extremely high-impedance instrumentation. The last step of assembly was to wash and rinse in filtered water. It wasn't necessarily DI, but it ran through a reverse-osmosis filter that used diatomaceous earth and seemed to work well. Sometimes you had to re-wash and re-rinse to get them to settle out.

            Point being- if low ion water is truly clean water, would a reverse-osmosis filter be a good way to have very clean drinking water?

            • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 22 2020, @07:54AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 22 2020, @07:54AM (#960971)

              Water with low conductivity doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't contain toxic covalently bonded molecules that don't dissolve into ions in water. So just because it doesn't carry an electrical current doesn't mean it's pure water.

              Also certain ions may be bad for you even in low enough concentrations to be difficult to really detect with your PPM or OHM meter.

              RO alone doesn't necessarily remove all small ions. You need a deionizer.

      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @09:16PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @09:16PM (#960842)

        How did fluoride get into her water?

        Commies.

        Gen. Jack T. Ripper