When I first heard there was fluoride in our water supply, I was sitting in a consultation room with a Nutritionist as I was having a really hard time with low energy, depression and anxiety. At 23 years old I’d hit rock bottom with my health and I was ready to find the root cause of why I was feeling so unwell.
I was advised to filter my drinking water to avoid fluoride as it reduces iodine levels in the body which over time can impact your thyroid health which governs your hormonal system.
I followed my healing plan as though it was my full-time job and after 6 months, I was feeling really well and balanced. I was so excited that I organised for Barbara Wren my Nutritionist to give health talks in my home town of Tralee, Co. Kerry. With the focus on mental health, Barbara kept saying how important it is to get the fluoride out of our drinking water.
I didn’t think much of it other than “get a filter and that will be it”.
As Barbara was about to leave at the airport, she said to me “You should try to get the fluoride out of the water in Ireland”. In that moment, it was like she placed a harpoon into my chest and something opened in me that wasn’t there before. I knew deep down in my heart that I had to do something about this.
I started delving into the scientific literature and discovered that water fluoridation isn’t as safe and effective at the optimal level as we’ve been made to believe since it was first added to Ireland’s water back in 1964.
Before I share with you what I found I’d like to give you some context to help you see the bigger picture.
Ireland is the only country in Europe with mandatory water fluoridation policy since 1964.
97% of Europe has banned or rejected the practice of adding artificial fluoride to water.
Countries that don’t fluoridate include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland and Latvia and approximately 90% of both the United Kingdom and Spain.
Holland banned water fluoridation by law. This law came into effect because it was widely perceived that drinking water should not be used as a vehicle for pharmaceuticals.
Dr Hans Moolenburgh’s research in Holland found that people experienced health problems following the addition of fluoride to the Amsterdam water supplies in 1972.
The problems included gastrointestinal disorders, mouth sores, rashes, headaches and forms of arthritis. Follow-up research in 1993 revealed significant increases in the incidence of cancer, arthritis and neurological complaints, he reported.
The biggest issue with adding fluoride to the water supply is that you cannot determine how much people are ingesting.
The concentration of fluoride in the water supply of between 0.6 to 0.8 ppm (as Ireland’s is) should not be deemed ‘safe’ for humans as it does not take into account the amount of water that people consume or their health status. Athletes and those involved in manual work can drink litres of water a day. This would mean that they are consuming far more fluoride than people who drink less. The World Health Organisation set a safety limit of 1.5 mg of fluoride a day as an upper safety margin, yet people in Ireland are being exposed to far more than this because fluoride is not only in our water but also in our food.
You’re drinking water every day and using it for teas, coffees and cooking and the question in your mind is does fluoride impact your health?
To answer that question, you have to look into what’s fluoride. Fluoride, like iodine, chloride and bromine is in the family of halogens. According to Dr. Brownstein, the author of Iodine: Why you need it, why you can’t live without it, fluoride is known to be a toxic agent.
It has been shown to inhibit the ability of the thyroid gland to concentrate iodine. Research as shown that fluoride is much more toxic to the body when there is iodine deficiency present. When you have iodine deficiency you have an increased risk of developing thyroid dysfunction, which is really common, because iodine acts as an antiseptic to the thyroid so when you have a deficiency you’re most likely to succumb the a thyroid condition which is caused in 95% cases by the Epstein Barr Virus.
Fluoride is an aluminium by product that’s highly toxic to your liver, causing liver cell damage.
Medical Medium
In recent years studies have shown how fluoride impacts neurological health negatively.
In The Case Against Fluoride by Dr Paul Connett, Dr. James Beck, and Dr. H. Spedding Micklem, they expressed particularly concerned about is the impact of consuming water at 1 ppm over an extended period of time.
In the case of infants, a huge concern is the possible impact on their mental development over the first few years of life, since studies have shown that levels as low as 1.9 ppm fluoride in water are associated with a lowering of IQ in China.
In the case of adults, we are concerned about lifelong exposure to levels of 6 mg per day or even lower and what damage that might do to bones and ligaments.
The debate of the science around fluoride has been going on since the 1960s. It’s clear to see that there are enough red flags to stop this practice based on the precautionary principle.
The only reason its added is to prevent tooth decay, yet The World Health Organisation found that countries that stopped adding fluoride to water have seen the same dental decay rates drop as those that do add fluoride. The main solution to reduced dental decay is better oral hygiene and improved diet.
Scotland who don’t fluoridate the water supply run a successful programme called Child Smile which teaches young children at nursery school how to properly brush their teeth giving them healthy habits they need to take care of their oral health for life.
Adding fluoride to our water is an outdated practice and it’s time to give everyone a choice and join the rest of Europe who don’t add fluoride chemicals to drinking water.
The belief that fluoride is good for teeth is deeply ingrained in the collective and individual consciousness.
It’s time to release the belief and it starts with you, understanding how to truly support oral health.
But Aisling, if water fluoridation stops won’t tooth decay rates go up?
When fluoridation is stopped, tooth decay rates do not go up.
There now have been at least four modern studies showing that when fluoridation was halted in communities in East Germany, Finland, Cuba, and British Columbia (Canada), tooth decay rates did not go up.
Oral health is creating by taking care of the teeth from the inside out. The biggest impact on oral health is gut health and nutritional deficiencies.
The dental world has its usual fall guys. The blame game calls out lemons as being one of the culprits at the top of the list along with fruit eating as another, which are the healthiest foods and for both oral health and overall health.
Health professionals more and more believe the sugar from fruit and the acid from lemon are destructive to teeth and should be avoided at all costs, which couldn’t be further from the truth as lemon helps to improve hydrochloric acid in the gut which is needed to keep bad acids from coming up and eroding the tooth enamel causing tooth decay.
Meanwhile, fluoride treatments at the dentist’s office and brushing with toxic toothpastes at home are common practices.
Most people’s body chemistry is highly acidic and substances such as coffee, green tea, kombucha tea and others add to this acidic blood and creates excess unhealthy stomach acid, which in time damages the teeth from the inside out.
Some people avoid processed sugar and their teeth rot and decay, this is because mineral deficiencies, inherited toxins, and poisons from the family line that go back generations and generations play a role in enamel decay.
Most of us come into this world with deficiencies that accumulate and compound over time, and these deficiencies come to fruition in our teeth.
Fluoride is a bandaid and doesn’t address the root cause of tooth decay
Addressing nutritional deficiencies, detoxing inherited toxins, minimising exposure to toxins and improving gut health is the key to healthy teeth and gums.
JAMA Pediatric Journal Found Fluoridated Water in Pregnancy linked to Lowered IQ of children
In August of 2019, the world’s premier pediatric journal, JAMA Pediatrics, published a U.S. government-funded study linking exposure to “optimally” fluoridated water during pregnancy to lowered IQ in the child (Green, 2019). JAMA Pediatrics editor, Dimitri Christakis, remarked on the significance of the study in an editorial note, noting the study’s rigor:
“This decision to publish this article was not easy. Given the nature of the findings and their potential implications, we subjected it to additional scrutiny for its methods and the presentation of its findings. The mission of the journal is to ensure that child health is optimized by bringing the best available evidence to the fore.”
The publication of the study was accompanied by a podcast featuring the journal editors:
* JAMA Pediatrics Audio Editors’ Summary (August 19, 2019)
Now I’d love to hear from you. Share your biggest takeaway in the comments below.
I’ll be sharing a blog on how to support oral health soon and will be covering this in-depth in a module in Mother Temple, The Mother and Children’s Health Programme, join the waitlist here.
Aisling xo
Sources:
Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores in Offspring in Canada, 2019, JAMA Paediatric Medical Journal
Medical Medium, Troublemakers that make you sick
Dr Brownstein Iodine Why you need it, why you can’t live without it
The Case against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep It There by Dr Paul Connett, Dr. James Beck, and Dr. H. Spedding Micklem
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