by Stephen C. L’Hommedieu, DC
October 1, 2012
Is Fluoride a Nutrient?
Among the flood of misinformation perpetuated by fluoridation proponents is the concept of fluoride as an important nutrient. Despite the fact that fluoride has never been proven to serve any role in human nutrition whatsoever, for some perplexing reason, proponents believe ingesting a hazardous industrial waste is the answer to reducing tooth decay in children. Considering how the increasing toxic burdens affecting our children’s health have resulted with over 50% of U.S. children suffering at least one chronic illness, and approximately 20% are developmentally disabled, does it really make sense to add more pollutants to our water supplies?
Fluoridation proponents simply ignore toxicological data and refer to fluoride as a mineral. This leads the public to an incorrect assumption that all minerals are nutrients. This isn’t the case with fluoride. Most elements of the periodic table are minerals, including lead and arsenic — very toxic minerals. Obviously not all minerals are safe or play an important role in providing optimal health, and fluoride is one of them.
Advocates for water fluoridation claim: “Numerous scientific studies and reviews have recognized fluoride as an important nutrient for strong healthy teeth.” — fluoridefreekansas.COM spoof site.
Think About This: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies fluoride as a pollutant, yet the EPA’s Office of Water (OW) provides water fluoridation protective status by substantiating the presumed benefit of fluoride for dental health. The OW had even gone as far as to assert that fluoride was a nutrient. This misrepresentation of fluoride was eventually rejected by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Institute of Medicine (IOM), the National Institute for Health (NIH) and National Research Council (NRC). Each organization was eventually forced to acknowledge that fluoride plays no role in human nutrition and is unnecessary for optimal growth and development.
To scientifically prove a substance is an essential nutrient, or important for specific biological functions, requires starving an animal of the substance to observe the symptoms and disease processes that result from the deficiency. It is an almost impossible task to produce a diet entirely free of fluoride for control groups. The most reliable early animal studies conducted with nutritionally adequate diets reduced fluoride levels to a range of 0.005 to 0.007 ppm. Fluoride at these negligible levels demonstrated no impairment of heart, liver and kidney function or increase in dental caries in animals when compared with groups fed water containing fluoride. [1] To this day, there is not one biochemical process known to require fluoride and no milligrams/day requirement has been established in human nutrition.
Aliss Terpstra, CNP nicely summarizes criteria required to qualify fluoride as a nutrient: “[F]luoride would have to contribute to calories for energy, contribute to optimal tissue growth, organ functions, structures of maintenance of life and health; be required as a co-factor for enzymes or vitamins; provide antioxidant protection; or be essential for body metabolism, growth, reproduction, and normal development of the fetus and child… Fluoride does none of these.” [2]
The European Commission in a 2010 report stated, “Plasma fluoride concentrations are not homeostatically regulated, but rise and fall according to the pattern of fluoride intake. In adults, plasma fluoride levels appear to be directly related to the daily exposure of fluoride.” [3] This indicates fluoride is unnecessary for the maintenance and function of biological processes in the body. Fluoride when consumed is either readily excreted or accumulates in the body, mostly within bone and connective tissue, but also within certain organs and endocrine glands. Essentially, your body becomes a storage vessel for this hazardous industrial waste.
In addition to the absence of scientific evidence supporting fluoride as a nutrient, research describes how fluoride targets various organ, endocrine and nervous system tissues to interfere with and damage biological mechanisms — even in low doses. [4]
There is no doubt that technological advancements of modern dentistry and medicine have greatly improved the quality of crisis care and our understanding of disease processes. Yet, endorsements for water fluoridation by these organizations stand among their other ironic and unfortunate examples of preventive health care programs that are absent of common sense and the fundamentals of chemistry and nutrition.
Elapsed from the pre-medicine education memory of these dentists and physicians who promote water fluoridation are the chemical properties of fluoride they should have learned from their basic sciences — fluoride is highly electronegative, a strong oxidizer and hungry for hydrogen bonds. This means fluoride has the ability to induce oxidative stress, alter gene expression and act as an enzyme inhibitor by breaking hydrogen bonds critical for maintaining the functional integrity of cellular components, nucleic acids, and protein structures of enzymes.
Disruptive to numerous biochemical processes, fluoride’s strong negative charge acts overtly antagonistic toward positively charged essential minerals to interfere with their important roles for growth, development, maintenance and function. Among the list of essential minerals whose roles in human nutrition are metabolically impaired or altered by the action of fluoride include essential nutrients such as boron, calcium, iodine, iron, lithium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, potassium, sodium, zinc and other essential macro and trace minerals.
Altered mineral metabolism also includes greatly enhanced absorption of toxic minerals such as aluminum. Aluminum fluoride has been shown to increase beta amyloid plaque formation in the brain — the benchmark of Alzheimer’s disease. [5] The aluminum fluoride-treated water for the Varner (1998) study was only 0.5 ppm. Think about how much aluminum fluoride you will be consuming when simmering fluoridated water in aluminum cookware.
Destructive to bone, cardiovascular and nervous system health, fluoride robs minerals from bones, increases calcification of arteries, increases risk of cardiovascular events, alters neurological function, and depletes vital antioxidants and vitamins C, D and E. [6] [7]
If you are still undecided as to whether fluoride is hazardous substance to human health or an important nutrient, next time we’ll examine fluoride from the perspective of the EPA. The EPA plays a vital role in preserving the water fluoridation program.
Help Keep Water Fluoridation Out of Wichita, Kansas
Protecting Wichita’s water quality, public health, environment and our civil and constitutional liberties is our responsibility. Although some believe water fluoridation is in the best interests of our children, informed citizens of Wichita, KS are spreading the facts and need your support.
The Kansas Health Foundation and other private and corporate special-interests have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars for the promotional advertising, media coverage, advertising agency, law firm and hired help to promote water fluoridation in Wichita. If Wichitans knew the truth about water fluoridation they would be outraged by this science that only money can buy.
Don Landis is the spokesperson and action coordinator for the new non-profit community outreach organization, www.WichitansOpposedToFluoridation.com. He also coordinates efforts with www.WichitaPureWater.com and many volunteers who are contributing resources and organizing important events to reach the public with the facts being withheld by the dental and medical communities and media.
If you would like to donate your time, talent and financial support, you may contact Don directly by e-mail at dlandis1@cox.net or call 316.990.1471. It’s important to educate the Wichita community since the many surrounding communities that will be affected cannot vote on this referendum on November 6th.
More information on fluoride and water fluoridation can be obtained at the following links:
1. www.fluoridealert.org (Founded by Paul Connett, Ph.D.)
2. www.fluorideresearch.org (Editor Albert W. Burgstahler, Ph.D.)
Protect public health and your right to refuse unwanted medication: Say NO to fluoridation on November 6th!
[1] George L. Waldbott, M.D., Albert W. Burgstahler, Ph.D. & H. Lewis McKinney, Ph.D. (1978): Fluoridation: The Great Dilemma, Coronado Press, Inc.
[2] Aliss Terpstra, CNP (2012): Does Water Fluoridation Cause Heart Disease? The Institute of Holistic Nutrition: Nutrition Research. http://www.instituteofholisticnutrition.com/nutrition-research/
[3] Critical Review of Any New Evidence on the Hazard Profile, Health Effects, and Human Exposure to Fluoride and the Fluoridating Agents of Drinking Water. European Commission: Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER), May, 2010.
[4] Barbier O. et al: Molecular Mechanisms of Fluoride Toxicity. Chemico-Biological Interactions 188 (2010) 320-328.
[5] Varner J.A. et al: Chronic Administration of Aluminum-Fluoride and Sodium-Fluoride to Rats in Drinking Water: Alterations in Neuronal and Cerebral Vascular Integrity. Brain Research 1998 Feb 16;784(1-2):284-98.
[6] Yuxin L. et al: Association of Vascular Fluoride Uptake with Vascular Calcification and Coronary Artery Disease. Nuclear Medicine Communications 33:14-20 (2011).
[7] Susheela A.K. (2007): A Treatise on Fluorosis, Revised 3rd Edition. Fluorosis Research and Rural Development Foundation, Delhi, India.
© Dr. Stephen C. L’Hommedieu
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica’s publishing standards.)
Originally published on https://www.renewamerica.com/columns/lhommedieu/121001
October 1, 2012