It’s Not Just A Kid Thing: Fluoridated Tap Water Benefits Older Adults Even More
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The benefits of fluoridation in preventing tooth decay have been known for over half a century and today approximately two-thirds of Americans have access to fluoridated public water.
Gerardo Maupome, B.D.S., M.Sc., Ph.D., of the Indiana University School of Dentistry, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, and colleagues report in a study published in the Fall issue of the Journal of Public Health Dentistry that older adults benefit even more significantly from fluoridation than children.
Dr. Maupome and his colleagues investigated whether access to fluoridated community water reduced the amounts of dental fillings and associated costs needed by children, adults, and older adults. All three groups benefited, with older adults benefiting the most.
Participants in the study were all members of a dental health maintenance organization and so had access to dental care through dental insurance. “Our finding that fluoridated water lowered the number of dental fillings confirms studies on younger people but breaks new ground on older individuals. While those we studied had dental insurance, many older adults, who are often retired, don’t have dental insurance and so prevention of decay is very important. Community water fluoridation is a sound public health investment for people of all ages,” said Dr. Maupome, who is also a Regenstrief Institute, Inc. affiliated scientist.
“Much of the focus of research on community water fluoridation has been on children. There has been significantly less research on adults and even less on older adults. Individuals are keeping their teeth through adulthood into their older years. We need to study dental health through all decades of life,” said Dr. Maupome.
5 Comments
Wayne
December 5th, 2007
at 4:49pm
Fluoridation , you get enough from your toothpaste, it’s not like calcium your body uses when you eat it ,but floride in your water comsuming it isin’t good for your health, so how is eating floride,going through your whole body good for you?
That’s like puting alchohol on a wound wich is good, and then saying it’s good to drink it to .
Joe Schmoe
December 5th, 2007
at 10:44pm
This is absurd. Fluoride is a POISON. Nazis used to put fluoride in their water to make their citizens tired and dull. We started doing it on recommendation from a Nazi! Please get educated. Watch the documentary, “The Fluoride Deception” and learn the truth.
Also visit fluoridealert.org for more information about the dangers of fluoride.
Anti-Fluoride
December 8th, 2007
at 7:40am
To put it bluntly, fluoridated water has caused me thousands of dollars in dental bills, and has caused several lawsuits in the municipality where I grew up.
The municipality over-fluoridated the water, and when combined with kids in school having to slosh a mouthful of it each week in school (a requirement up through high school, for which a few kids actually received detentions when they refused) ended up with a large chunk of my generation from that area having severely discolored teeth.
It didn’t just affect baby teeth, either. Our adult teeth are all just as bad. I’ve never smoked a day in my life, but I have teeth that look like I smoke a pack a day, and have been for years. I also have many black, almost cavity-like splotches on many of my teeth, all from the fluoride.
One of the last lawsuits the municipality had, was a class-action suit that was eventually settled with each person born in that area during a certain period of years being paid $1800. That doesn’t even begin to cover the amount I’ve dropped on having my teeth cleaned and corrected because of the discoloration, and I’m not even worrying too much about having my molars or other generally unseen teeth cleaned up.
Fluoride may have advantages, but as said in another comment, you get all you need from your toothpaste. Adding the stuff to water and, worse yet, making kids rinse with it in school, is several degrees of overkill.
Alex
December 9th, 2007
at 12:30pm
I agree with Wayne. One thing that seems to never be factored into these experiments is the effect that flouridated toothpaste has. My dentist gave me a flouride treatment several years back. I didn’t drink the stuff. My teeth were soaked in it. Flouride is a known poison and the body doesn’t need it.
dar
December 9th, 2007
at 1:30pm
Amen, Joe Schmoe.
We’ve all been hoodwinked,
Get a load of this:
‘In a statement released early August by the Fluoride Action Network, over 600 doctors, scientists, and other experts have donated their signatures to call for an end to the controversial practice of water fluoridation.
In an extensive examination of the available literature, FAN has compounded a list of suspected symptoms of fluoridation in the human population including an increase in the risk of bone fractures, decreased thyroid function, lowered IQ, arthritic-like conditions, dental fluorosis, and osteosarcoma.
http://www.newstarget.com/022008.html