Marc Joseph Nutrition - Blog

The American Dental Association (ADA) recently released new guidelines that significantly reduce the recommended amount of exposure to fluoride for infants and small children.

The guidelines were changed to reduce the risk of developing fluorosis (pictured below). Fluorosis can occur with excessive fluoride exposure, and leads to permanent pitting and discoloration of the teeth.

This Environmental Working Group article summarizes the primary ADA recommendations:

Infants
- Feed infants breast milk whenever possible.
- For infants who get most of their nutrition from formula, choose ready-to-feed formula over formula mixed with fluoridated water.
- If liquid or powdered concentrate infant formula is the primary source of nutrition, mix with water that is fluoride free, including water that is labeled purified, demineralized, deionized, distilled or reverse osmosis filtered water.

Children
- Stay away from fluoride toothpaste before two years.
- No fluoride mouth rinse or supplements unless prescribed by a dentist.
- Check with your water supplier to make sure the fluoride level in your drinking water does not exceed the recommended 1.2 parts per million.

There is significant debate over the health effects of fluoride and whether or not it is really even effective in reducing tooth decay. Here’s a good site that presents perspectives on both sides of the issue:

Second Look - Fluoride

I side with the anti-fluoride crowd, and this site provides ample evidence to support that position:

FluorideAlert.org

There you’ll find:

• Ten interesting facts on fluoride.
• A list of fluoride sources in the diet and environment.
• An overview of the chemicals used to fluoridate drinking water.
• A discussion of fluoride’s detrimental health effects, including those on the teeth, kidneys, brain, thyroid gland, pineal gland, bones, and more.
• A good FAQ with answers to common questions.

Clearly, there are plenty of good reasons why the National Academy of Sciences earlier this year concluded that current water fluoridation levels are not protecting human health, may be dangerous, and should be lowered.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 11:26 pm and is filed under Fluoride. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.