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Health Net
March 12, 1999
The fluoride issue, a perennial hot potato, is heating up once again. In Britain, the government has recently announced its intention to fluoridate the water of deprived inner city areas, supposedly to improve the dental health of children living there. Later, water fluoridation may be introduced nationwide. A White Paper outlining the government’s plans is scheduled for this spring.
The government and the dental profession have convinced the public that fluoridated water offers nothing but benefits that there is overwhelming evidence that it prevents tooth decay and contributes to the strength of bones. There is tacit admission in the pro-fluoride camp that fluoride can also cause harm, but only at high levels: more than 2 ppm in water may cause mottled teeth and over 8 ppm may lead to bone disorders and degenerative changes in the vital organs.
A few lone voices have countered the prevailing view, with published evidence that fluoride can have devastating effects, causing mottled teeth and osteoporosis at very low levels. While much has been written about the effects of too much fluoride on teeth and bones, little is known about the effects of fluoride on the rest of the body
But new evidence has emerged demonstrating that it can have devastating effects on just about every organ in the body, and may even be partly responsible for behavioral problems like hyperactivity and many puzzling illnesses like ME.
Like mercury, fluoride isn’t exactly an obvious choice for dental health as it is a poison – more poisonous than lead and only slightly less poisonous than arsenic (Clin Toxicol Commerc Prod, 1984; 11: 4, 112, 129, 138). It’s been used as a pesticide, and it’s a component in fungicides, rodenticides, anaesthetics and many drugs. The fluoride used in toothpaste, mouth rinses and dental gels is usually sodium fluoride, a waste product from the aluminium industry. Fluoride added to our water supply is hydrofluorosilic acid or sometimes silicofluoride-waste pro~ ducts of fertiliser and glass industries.
The late US fluoride critic George L Waldbott discovered that, besides teeth and bones, fluoride can damage soft tissue. According to his research, the small fluorine ion with a high charge density can penetrate every cell of the body and combine with other ions (GL Waldbott et al, Fluoride: The Great Dilemma, Lawrence, Kansas: Corenado Press, 1978: 14874). It interferes with the metabolism of calcium and phosphorus and the function of the parathyroid glands.
It has a strong affinity to calcium, but will also readily combine with magnesium and manganese ions and so can interfere with many enzyme systems that require these minerals. The interruption of these enzyme systems, in turn, may disturb carbohydrate metabolism, bone formation and muscle function. Indeed, every vital function in the body depends on enzymes; because fluoride easily reaches every organ, many diverse toxic symptoms can result.
Fluoride and enzymes
Enzyme systems react to fluoride in different ways; some are activated, others are inhibited. Lipase (essential for the digestion of fat) and phosphatases (needed to breakdown phosphates) are very sensitive to fluoride. In patients with skeletal fluorosis, succinate dehydrogenase activity is inhibited. In chronic fluoride poisoning,
this diminished enzyme activity accounts for muscular weakness and even muscle wasting. Human salivary acid phosphatase is diminished by half when exposed to 3.8 ppm of fluoride. The blood enzyme cholinesterase is inhibited by 61 per cent on exposure to 0.95 ppm fluoride-an amount within recommended levels adversely affecting functions of the nervous system (PA Smith, ed, Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1970: 48-97).
Alkaline phosphatase, an enzyme involved in bone growth and liver function, may also be affected by low-level fluoride intake.
According to scientists from the University of California at San Diego, fluoride switches off the enzyme cytochrome C oxidase, an oxygen-carrying respiratory enzyme; deficiencies of this vital enzyme have been linked to cancer, severe diseases and even cot death (J Biol Chem, 1984; 259: 12984
It’s also been shown by research at Kings College in London that fluoride forms very strong hydrogen bonds with amides, which are formed when amino acids join together to form a protein (J Am Chem Sao, 1981; 103: 24-8). This can cause chromosomal damage.
If the protein is distorted, the body’s immune system no longer recognises it, treats it as a foreign protein and will try to destroy it, which in turn triggers allergic skin or gastrointestinal reactions (j Yiamouyannis, Fluoride: The Aging Factor, Delaware, Ohio: Health Action Press, 1993: 94-9).
Stomach and bowel disorders are the main features of fluoride intolerance. Even small amounts of fluoride can form hydrofluoric acid in the stomach to produce gastric pains, nausea and vomiting. Young children are particularly at risk. Fluoride tablets can even cause gastric haemorrhages; in one instance, a 9year-old boy sustained such damage that large parts of his stomach had to be removed (Fluoride, 1977; 10: 149-51).
Links with thyroid disease
The most readily identifiable feature of soft-tissue fluorosis is extraordinary general fatigue, which is frequently linked to thyroid deficiency The thyroid gland requires iodine to produce the hormone thyroxine, which controls the rate of metabolism in the body. But when fluorine is present, iodine is displaced, which will cause a thyroid gland to stop working properly (K Roholm, Handbuch Experi menteller Pharma-kologie, Ergaenzungswerk, Vol 7, Berlin. Springer, 1938: 20).
The parathyroid gland, which regulates the distribution of calcium and phosphorus in the body, is extremely sensitive to excessive amounts of fluoride. Over 50 years ago, Indian doctors found a close relationship between skeletal fluorosis and hyperparathyroidism (J Hyg 1942; 42: 500 4).
Fluoride has even been shown to affect the pituitary gland, which controls growth rate by regulating the production of thyroid hormones (Seances Soc Biol Fil, 1930; 103: 9812). In animals, less than normal amounts of thyroid hormones are produced when animals are given water containing a fluoride con tent equivalent to that of water fluoridation (Bull Schweiz Akad Med Wiss, 1954; 10: 211-20).
Professor A K Susheela of the Fluoride and Fluorosis Research Foundation of India, a consultant to the Indian government, has published over 100 scientific papers on the hazards of fluoride. Using scanning electron microscope photography, she has proved that when exposed to fluoride, red blood cells are killed prematurely, lowering haemoglobin and causing anaernia. She also showed that calcium levels diminish as fluoride levels in the body rise; the gastrointestinal tract mucosa is damaged, causing irritable bowel syndrome; and blood fluoride levels rise continuously with prolonged use of fluoridated toothpaste.
When people are bombarded with fluoride, in the form of fluoridated water, toothpaste and mouth rinses, muscles and elements of connective tissue, particularly collagen fibre and bone tissue, undergo degenerative changes, says Prof Susheela.
At the 1998 US Conference of the International Society for Fluoride Research in Bellingham, Washington, Dr Jennifer Luke from the University of Surrey, UK, presented evidence of the effects of fluoride on the pineal gland in gerbils. In both gerbils and humans this gland helps control the aging process and the production of melatonin, which regulates the sleep/wake cycle. Gerbils exposed to a high level of fluoride experienced a significant decrease in the production of melatonin and earlier genital maturation. While animal studies may not always be applicable to humans, Dr Luke theorised that mass fluoridation may be behind the general decline in the age of puberty in the West (Fluoride, 1998; 31: 175).
In areas where water is fluoridated, evidence shows that dangerously high fluoride concentrations accumulate in many soft tissues and organs of the population, including the heart, kidney and bladder. The highest level ever recorded–8400 ppm-was found in the aortas of people living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where fluoride was first introduced in America.
The heart and blood vessels are affected by fluoride. Cardiac irregularities and low blood pressure have been noted in experimental poisoning using large doses (PubI Health Report, 1956; 71: 45967). In 1950, five years after experimental introduction of fluoride into drinking water in Grand Rapids, the number of deaths from heart disease nearly doubled. Death rates due to cancer, diabetes and arteriosclerosis were all markedly increased compared to death rates for the rest of the state (The Grand Rapid Herald, July 28, 1955).
By recording the heart’s activity, Japanese researcher Taka. Mori showed a direct link between damage to the heart and dental fluorisis in children who drank water with a fluoride content of 0.5 to 6.2 ppm (R Ziegelbecker et al, Emu Verlags Gmbh, Austria: Lahnstein, 1995: 43).
Fluoride affects the brain and entire central nervous system. Neurological problems like headaches, vertigo, spasticity in extremities, visual disturbances and impaired mental acuity can all result. Tissue damage to anterior horn cells (cells in the forward-facing section of the spinal cord) has been found (Fluoride, 1975; 8:61-85).
Official annual statistics revealed that among malnourished children in the Chilean town of Curico, fluoridated since 1953, death rates were 104 per cent higher than in comparable, non-fluoridated towns. The general mortality was higher in Curico by 113 per cent, com pared with the average for the rest of the country (Emu Verlags: 47-8).
Fluoride and ME
Although few researchers have looked at the role of fluoride in the development of myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), there are conspicuous similarities between key features of ME/chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and those seen in the very early stages of fluoride poisoning (Fluoride, 1998; 31: 13-20; see box, p 1).
Dr John McLaren Howard of Biolab in London offers a few important clues as to why this may be. He discovered that ME patients experience reduced movement of white blood cells when exposed to quite low levels of fluoride (InterAction 14, Autumn, 1994: 53-4). This effect on white blood cells might render patients less able to fight infections efficiently, or lead to an exacerbation of their health problems.
Fluoride also interferes with phagocytosis, as well as causing the release of superoxide free radicals in resting white blood cells. This means that fluoride slows down and weakens the very cells which serve as the body’s defence system. Bacteria, viruses, chemicals and the body’s own damaged or cancerous cells are then allowed to wreak havoc. Minor infections take longer to clear and can cause more serious illness (J Yiamouiannis, The Aging Factor, Health Action Press, 1993: 32). This is precisely what appears to be happening in many cases of ME.
We do not know how many children or teenagers had topical dental treatment with high concentration fluoride, before succumbing to infections which led to ME/CFS. Tests done by the Japanese researchers at the Nippon Dental College, Tokyo on potential hazards on high doses of fluoride showed that levels as low as 57 ppm could induce genetic damage and irregular synthesis of DNA in mammalian cells. These tests were undertaken to assess the hazards of rub on fluoride products used to Prevent tooth decay, at concentrations of 9000 ppm (paper presented at a meeting of The Japanese Society for Cancer Research, August 23, 1982, cited in The Ecologist, 1986; 16: 249-52). Varnishes containing 20,000 ppm fluoride, supposedly to strengthen teeth, may in future be applied.
My son had fluoride treatment to prevent tooth decay in the autumn of 1979, after which his health dramatically deteriorated, commencing with gastric problems various minor infections and glandular fever, followed by atypical measles, more infections and eventually resulting in ME in 1980. In the end, the fluoride treatment didn’t work in preventing tooth decayhe’s needed 15 fillings over nine years.
The American pathologist Majid Ali of Columbia University, New York, explains that chronic fatigue results from an “accelerated oxidative molecular injury”. Only a well-functioning enzyme system can protect us from such injury and maintain normal energy levels. In ME there is a high frequency of membrane deformities, due to increased oxidative stress on the cell membranes, which is why sufferers lack energy similar to what happens in fluoride poisoning (The Canary and Chronic Fatigue, New Jersey: Life Span Press, 1994).
Experienced researchers who have studied ME for decades maintain that, as with polio, it is brought on by damage to anterior horn cells caused by a gut virus, which explains why polio victims are paralysed or suffer from impaired motor function (B M Hyde et al, The Clinical and Scientific Basis of ME/CFS Ottawa:
Nightingale Research Foundation, 1992: 111-6). But fluoride has also been shown to damage anterior horn cells. Gastrointestinal disturbances, often referred to as IBS, are also known to play a significant part in ME, as they are in the chronic fluoride toxicity syndrome.
Severe sleep disturbances, or reversal of sleep rhythm, are a common feature in ME/CFS (Clin: 285-91). Deposits of large quantities of fluoride in the pineal gland of animals have caused similar problems 0 Luke, Bellingham Conference, 1998).
At this point, no one knows just how much these syndromes overlap, or to what extent fluoride facilitates the development of ME by various biological agents. The indications are that fluoride may act as as a “facilitating cofactor” and exacerbate existing problems in such patients. Or it could be, as Dr H C Moolenburgh Dutch author and fluoride critic suggests, that ME is one of the end stages of a general chemical poisoning, with fluoride one of the worse offenders.
Doris Jones
Minimising your fluoride exposure
Although you can’t eliminate your exposure to fluoride entirely, you can minimise your risk of overdosing.
To help avoid fluoride toxicity:
- eat foods low in fluoride, like milk, eggs, red meats (not organs), produce with a protective rind (watermelon, lemon, banana, coconut), fruits packed in their own juices (pineapple) and those canned in non-fluoridated or low-fluoridated countries
- take adequate amounts of vitamins B6 and C
- supplement with calcium and magnesium salts to help decrease fluoride absorption from the stomach and assist in elimination
- maintain good general and dental health with varied vegetables (lightly cooked or raw), fresh fruits, pulses and little sugar
- for dental health, maintain adequate levels of calcium and phosphorus, as well as magnesium, strontium, molybdenum, vanadium and zinc (Fluoride: The Great Dilemma)
- if possible, avoid moving to areas that presently fluoridate water supplies, which in the UK include much of Birmingham, Newcastle, all of Warwickshire, parts of Carlisle, Coventry, Doncaster, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Wolverhampton and isolated areas elsewhere
- avoid the following drugs, which contain fluoride: Prozac (fluoxetine), Rohypnol (flunitrazepam), Diflucan (fluconazole, Flixonase or Flixotide (fluticasone), Stelazine (trifluoperazine, Fluanxol or Depixol (flupenthixol) or Floxapen (flucloxacillin)
- contact your local water authority for analysis figures of your water’s fluoride content, or the National Pure Water
- use fluoride-free toothpaste, like Tombs, Tea Tree, Sarakan, Kingfisher, Natural Propolis, Weleda, Aloedent and others, available from health food shops
install a water purification system that re
FLUORIDE, THE SILENT KILLER
by: Yiamouyiannis, John, Ph.D.
Dr. Yiamouyiannis received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Rhode Island and served his post-doctoral fellowship at the Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He then became editor at Chemical Abstracts Service, the world’s largest chemical information center, where he first became aware of the health damaging effects of fluoride. He is the former science director of the National Health Federation; he is the executive director of Health Action and president of the Safe Water Foundation. He is a world-leading authority on the biological effects of fluoride and is responsible for ending the use of fluoride in many areas of the United States and abroad.
HARMFUL EFFECTS OF FLUORIDE
Fluoride is used as an insecticide and a roach killer. Even at the level they use to fluoridate your public water supply, usually at the rate of about 1 part fluoride for every million parts of water (1 ppm) by weight, it causes severe problems. As little as one-tenth of an ounce of fluoride will cause death. It is more poisonous than lead and just slightly less poisonous than arsenic. No one will die from drinking one glass of fluoridated water, but it is the long term chronic effects of drinking fluoridated water that affects health. Dental fluorosis is one of the earlier signs of fluoride poisoning, appearing in mild cases as a chalky area on the tooth, and in more advanced cases, teeth become yellow brown or black and the tips break off. Fluoride in the drinking water leads to fluoride levels in tissues and organs which damage enzymes. This results in a wide range of chronic diseases. Fluoride weakens the immune system and may cause allergic type reactions including dermatitis, eczema and hives. It causes birth defects and genetic damage. Fluoride is likely to aggravate kidney disease, diabetes and hypothyroidism. The amount consumed in drinking water has been shown to lower thyroid activity in humans. It also causes the breakdown of collagen which results in wrinkling of the skin and the weakening of ligaments, tendons and muscles. There are a number of ways that fluoride can be administered. The most insidious way is through the drinking water. Some of you have it in your mouthwashes, or in your toothpaste, or you may take a fluoride supplement which is dispensed in pills or drops.
FLUORIDE A BY-PRODUCT OF INDUSTRY
Fluoride is an industrial waste product, a by-product of the aluminum industry and the phosphate fertilizer companies who have mountains of fluoride that is polluting the ground water. They have to get rid of it, and the old solution to pollution is dilution – just put it in the drinking water. People living in the vicinity of aluminum, phosphate, steel, clay, glass and enamel plants are exposed to high levels of fluoride in the air. For instance, the Hamilton area shows extremely high lung cancer rates that decrease as you get away from the downwind plume of the steel mills. If fluoride was left with the phosphate and sold to farmers, it would kill their crops. That is what originally happened when they used this high fluoride phosphate, and the farmers said they were going back to manure.
FLUORIDATED TOOTHPASTE
Unless it says on the package does not contain fluoride, you are using fluoridated toothpaste. Fluoridated toothpaste contains 1,000 ppm fluoride. There is enough fluoride at 1,000 to 1,500 parts per million to kill a small child if they consume the entire tube. If a child consumes just part of it, it could result in either acute or chronic toxicity. A four to six year-old child will swallow 25 to 33% of the toothpaste they put on their toothbrush. Don’t let them put it in their mouth unless when they swallow it, it is good for them. People ask me where they can get non-fluoridated toothpaste. They have many brands of non-fluoridated toothpaste in health food stores, so pick up your toothpaste there, and make sure it doesn’t have fluoride, because some health food stores have a couple of brands of fluoride toothpaste. Not everything in a health food store is safe. Always read the labels. Pepsodent toothpaste also doesn’t have fluoride. If you want something inexpensive, use baking soda and sea salt, but make sure you dissolve the salt crystals in water before you brush your teeth; otherwise the salt crystals will score the enamel.
GUM DAMAGE
Fluoride actually causes gum damage at the concentrations used in fluoridated toothpaste at 1,000 ppm. Fluoride poisons enzyme activity and slows down the ability of the gums to repair themselves. If you brush your teeth with fluoridated toothpaste, you will suffer gum damage.
FLUORIDE GELS AND SOLUTIONS
Some schools have weekly fluoride mouth-rinse programs in which the children swish fluoride solutions around in their mouths. The fluoride comes in a sugar size packet, and on the outside of the packet it says fatal if swallowed. If your child is in any of these programs at school, get them out of it. We have testimonials one after the other of children who come home with a stomach ache because they had actually accidentally swallowed part of it, and children do accidentally swallow. Fluoride treatments at the dentist’s office are equally hazardous. In the typical fluoride treatment, 10,000 parts per million fluoride, which comes in a flavoured gel to make it taste good, is left on the teeth for about five minutes. Then the child spits it out, though invariable he swallows some. The child cannot rinse, eat or drink for at least half an hour afterward. Children have died after swallowing fluoride topically applied on their teeth. In one well publicized case, the dental hygienist neglected to tell the child to wash his mouth out and spit out the solution. The child began vomiting and sweating and died the same day. Over 6% of children receiving fluoride treatments at the dental office suffer gastrointestinal distress such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain either immediately or within one hour after treatment. According to scientists at the U.S. Public Health Service, topical fluoride is practically ineffective in reducing tooth decay, and damages gum tissue. According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “the high concentrations of some products (gels, mouthwash, tablets, toothpaste, etc.) may be neither biologically desirable nor clinically necessary”.
FLUORIDE SUPPLEMENTS
Tablets and drops are another means of administering fluoride. The Canadian Dental Association has admitted in the last couple of years that children under the age of three should not be given fluoride supplements. And yet dental practitioners and pediatricians who haven’t kept up to date are still giving fluoride supplements to young children. I advise against fluoride supplements for anyone.
ADDITION OF FLUORIDE TO PUBLIC WATER SYSTEMS
The addition of fluoride to the public water supply is the most insidious way of chronically poisoning hundreds of millions of people around the world. Dr. Dean Burk was former chief chemist of the National Cancer Institute, and has co-authored studies with many Nobel prize winners including Otto Warburton, and he is the co-author of the most cited paper in the entire field of biochemistry – the Lineweaver-Burk Enzyme Kinetics. In the 1970s, Dean Burk and I conducted a number of studies which linked fluoride and cancer. There was already scientific evidence from the 1950s that fluoride was causing cancer, and a 1963 study by Driscowitz and Norton showed that increased fluoride concentrations in the media of experimental animals increased tumour incidence from 12% at the lowest concentrations up to 100%. Taylor and Taylor published a study in 1965 at the University of Texas in all the mainline medical journals showing that 1 ppm or even 0.5 ppm increased tumour growth rate by 25%. These studies bothered me and around 1975 I found that we had enough data to compare the cancer death rate before and after fluoridation of fluoridated communities and compare them to non-fluoridated communities. Based on millions of subjects, the study showed a 5 to 10% increase in cancer death rate within three to five years after fluoridation was put into the water after correcting for various demographic factors like age, race and sex. All the variables were controlled. We followed this by a series of other studies. In 1977 we had full blown Congressional Hearings, and Congress stated: “We can no longer assure the American public that fluoride does not cause cancer”. Dean Burk and other well-known scientists were there, and on the opposing side was the American Dental Association. Ten years later, Proctor and Gamble, makers of Crest toothpaste found that fluoride was causing precarcinogenic changes in cells.
HOW FLUORIDE AFFECTS THE DNA REPAIR MECHANISM
Epidemiological evidence shows that fluoride causes cancer. It does this in several ways. It can actually cause the original lesion. In each one of our cells we have genetic material called DNA, and this DNA is double stranded, it has a helix shape and these two strands of DNA are held together by semi strong bonds called hydrogen bonds. Hydrogen bonds also hold proteins together. Fluoride goes in and breaks those hydrogen bonds, and consequently destabilizes DNA. It can’t cause a lesion in the DNA itself, but if it is in a site of the cell that regulates cell growth, it will cause uncontrolled cell growth. A few minor modifications will give you first a tumour, and secondly an invasive tumour or cancer. So fluoride has the ability to actually cause the cancer. We have a marvelous system of repair and rejuvenation. Even if we go out in the sun, even if we have a lesion by fluoride itself, we have what is called a DNA repair enzyme system. So any lesion caused by the sun or ultra-violet light will be repaired. The DNA repair enzyme system will cut off the ends and use the complementary strand to repair itself and make intact genetic material. The unfortunate thing is that one part per million fluoride, the amount of fluoride that they use in the public water system, depresses the DNA repair system by 50%. So they have attacked us on the first defense of damage to our genetic material. Since people can get cancer from so many different causes, fluoride is just increasing our chances of getting cancer.
THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
Even if the cancer cell starts dividing and invading surrounding tissues, if our immune system is strong enough, it will kill those cancer cells without any remedies, without chemotherapy, without anything and will destroy the occasional cancer that maybe all of us have had at one time or another. Once in a while cancer breaks through when the immune system is low or the DNA repair enzyme system is down, and we will get cancer. Fluoride causes the lesion; it inhibits the DNA repair enzyme, and then inhibits our immune system by 30 to 70%. And that occurs at only one part per million. How does it do that? Our immune system is composed of white blood cells including phagocyte cells that are carried in the blood system. If there is an infection or cancer or some foreign agent, these phagocytes will go to that area and start engulfing and destroying this bad agent whether it is a cancer cell or a bacterium or virus. It engulfs it in a little pocket called a lysosome which squirts enzymes and breaks down the bad agent into little pieces. They have other things called peroxisomes which burn that agent with free radicals and either destroy it or use it for building new and healthy cells. These phagocytes will actually eat up bacteria or viruses, and toxic substances are just thrown off. Studies from the University of Glasgow show that fluoride inhibits these white blood cells. Fluoride at levels below one part per million causes a chronic release of these free radicals from the white blood cell out into the blood stream where it starts slowly damaging your body by increasing free radicals. This is one of the reasons why we call fluoride the ageing factor.
NON-FLUORIDATED WATER
Industrial quality reverse osmosis water brings the total dissolved solids down to less that one part per million for all the pollutants that might be in there. Distilled water will remove 99% of the fluoride all of the time. I also recommend a pre-charcoal filter on a distiller to remove volatiles so that you are not getting noxious gases in your home. These are worse when you inhale them than when you drink them, because they go right into your blood stream and into your lungs. You can buy your water at the supermarket, but quite frankly you don’t know what the quality of the water is. You must take care that the fluoride concentration is less than 0.2 ppm. Some spring waters like Vichy (which contains 8 ppm) are notoriously high in fluoride. Avoid beverages such as soft drinks, beer and fruit juices from concentrate that have been bottled in fluoridated areas. Teas, even brewed in fluoride-free water will contain about 1.2 to 2.4 ppm fluoride. Some people drink 8 to 15 cups of tea a day, and these amounts are large enough to cause dental fluorosis and other harmful effects. MINERALS IN WATER If you want to get minerals, you must get them in the proper balanced ratio. Calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and other minerals must be in a ratio that is acceptable to a living organism. Get your minerals from healthy living organisms like vegetables, grains, nuts and seeds, and if you are not a vegetarian, like meats, bones or bonemeal. Beet greens are at the top of the list as a mineral supplement. I don’t recommend milk or dairy as a calcium source; cow’s milk has a very different constitution than human milk. DETOXIFICATION If you stop taking fluoride, your body will get rid of it eventually. The fluoride that gets stuck in your bones gets stuck there for life pretty much, but that is not necessarily bad. Where fluoride has adverse effects is in the soft tissues. If you take over 200 mg of vitamin C per day that is all you really need for removing fluoride. In three to six months you should have about 99% of it out which is good enough. GOOD DIET, NOT FLUORIDE, IS NECESSARY FOR HEALTHY TEETH. Many primitive societies whose drinking water contains negligible amounts of fluoride go through life without tooth decay because they eat very little sugar and other refined carbohydrates. DOES FLUORIDE REDUCE TOOTH DECAY? Numerous attempts have been made to show that the amount of fluoride used to fluoridate public water systems reduces tooth decay under laboratory conditions. Still no laboratory study has ever shown that this amount of fluoride is effective in reducing tooth decay. Further, there are no epidemiological studies on humans showing that fluoridation reduces tooth decay that meet the minimum requirements of scientific objectivity such as the double blind design. You may contact Dr. Yiamouyiannis at 614-548-5340. His book Fluoride: The Aging Factor contains references to studies and information cited in this article. His other book, High Performance Health is also available. Article Information Volume 21 Issue 1 January,1998. Recommended Books Fluoride: The Aging Factor YIAMOUYIANNIS, John, Ph.D. High Performance Health YIAMOUYIANNIS, John, Ph.D.
Summation – Fluoride & the Kidneys:
Kidney disease markedly increases an individual’s susceptibility to fluoride toxicity.
The kidneys are responsible for ridding the body of ingested fluoride, and thereby preventing the buildup of toxic levels of fluoride in the body.
In healthy adults, the kidneys are able to excrete approximately 50% of an ingested dose of fluoride.
However, in adults with kidney disease the kidneys may excrete as little as 10 to 20% of an ingested dose – thus increasing the body burden of fluoride and increasing an individual’s susceptibility to fluoride poisoning (e.g. renal osteodystrophy).
The bone changes commonly found among patients with advanced kidney disease closely resemble the bone changes found among individuals with the osteomalacic-type of skeletal fluorosis. This raises the possibility that some individuals with kidney disease are suffering from undiagnosed skeletal fluorosis.
As noted by Dr. Edward Groth, a veteran Senior Scientist at Consumers Union:
“It seems probable that some people with severe or long-term renal disease, which might not be advanced enough to require hemodialysis, can still experience reduced fluoride excretion to an extent that can lead to fluorosis, or aggravate skeletal complications associated with kidney disease… It has been estimated that one in every 25 Americans may have some form of kidney disease; it would seem imperative that the magnitude of risk to such a large sub-segment of the population be determined through extensive and careful study. To date, however, no studies of this sort have been carried out, and none is planned” (Groth 1973; Doctoral Thesis; Stanford University).
Because the kidney accumulates more fluoride than all other soft tissues (with the exception of the pineal gland), there is concern that excess fluoride exposure may contribute to kidney disease – thus initiating a “vicious cycle” where the damaged kidneys increase the accumulation of fluoride, causing in turn further damage to the kidney, bone, and other organs.
The possibility that fluoride exposure can cause direct damage to kidney tissue is supported by a long line of animal and human studies.
In studies on fluoride-exposed animals, kidney damage has been reported at levels as low as 1 ppm if the animals consume the water for long periods of time.
In humans, elevated rates of kidney damage are frequently encountered among populations with skeletal fluorosis. In addition, several case reports suggest that some individuals with kidney disease can experience significant recovery in their clinical signs and symptoms following the provision of fluoride-free water.