Not as evil as you have been told
Water filters for your shower are terrific for reducing your exposure to chlorine and chlorine gas.
The best quality filters also remove heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, herbicides, pesticides, and negate the effects of bacteria, viruses, algae, and even nasty protozoans.
There are very few filters that remove fluoride from water. The reason for this is that it makes it needlessly expensive, and it is mostly unnecessary.
Fluoride Distribution
Fluoride is the 13th most abundant substance on our planet. It dissolves out of granite and other natural minerals.
We have a lot of those in the southwestern United States, parts of northern Mexico, and around the Great Lakes and so the blue areas have much higher level of fluoride than occurs elsewhere.
We’ve been living with fluoride for millions of years, and our bodies deal with it just fine, thank you.
History
There was a man who lived for 65 years from 25 B.C.E. until 40 C.E. in Rome as an encyclopedist.
His name was Aulus Cornelius Celsus and he brought together the collected knowledge of ancient medicine; it included surgery, pharmacy, diet, and other related fields.
1,500 years later, Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim came along. Luckily he changed his name to Paracelsus, meaning “beyond Celsus”.
He was a physician, alchemist, and astrologer who lived during the German Renaissance of Medicine.
He was among the first to propose that illness was the result of external agents, and was not caused by the then-current belief of “imbalance” within the body. As a result, he is remembered as the Father of Toxicology.
All substances are poisons; it is merely the correct dose which differentiates a poison from a remedy
—Paracelsus
If you drink 200 ounces of water, in a span of 2 or 3 hours, you will die. Water Intoxication occurs frequently in marathon runners who drink too much during the race.
Most runners actually end up gaining weight during a race. It so seriously dilutes the electrolyte balance in the body that we don’t have enough salt left to think, breathe, or tell our heart to beat.
Literally everything can kill you in excessive amounts, or in its absence.
Fluoride is a Poison
You would be hard-pressed to kill someone with , unless you drowned them in it, but that is not what conspiracists from the 1940s would have you believe.
People with extreme beliefs attract adherents among the alienated, disenfranchised, and psychologically disturbed. They make their followers feel like heroes that are going to gain acceptance by saving everybody from a subversive government.
Much of that died out, at least until the Internet fanned the flames of extremism once again by giving everybody a soapbox to stand on. Now we’re faced with people in effect saying “Are you going to believe some ‘scientist’, or are you going to believe me, a truth-teller on the internet?”
They cobble together old, disavowed studies from India, Iran, or China. There, either the groundwater has extreme amounts of natural fluoride, or they burn coal with high levels of fluorite mineral inside their homes for cooking and heat.
Children in these areas had IQs a couple points lower than a control group.
The pseudo-scientists are saying fluoride causes mental deficiencies in children, but the studies were so poorly conducted that they didn’t consider lead-poisoning, other environmental contaminants, or even nutrition.
Of course, they like to toss in words like neurotoxicity to make it sound “scientific”, but it most certainly isn’t. No one except the fringe extremists give these studies any credence whatsoever.
The Impact
Fluorosis (often almost invisible) is characterized by white patches or streaks on teeth, said to make teeth more attractive, when just barely discernible. It requires no treatment.
When it is more pronounced it can be a psychological burden for some; teeth-whitening can mask the effect.
In (extremely rare) severe cases, teeth can become discolored and brown, and even show pitting on the surface. Even though fluorosis is purely cosmetic, this can be treated with dental veneers, or full caps.
Excessive fluoride occurs naturally on the Indian subcontinent and is responsible for skeletal fluorosis, often misdiagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis or ankylosing spondylitis. We never even approach these levels in North America.
Most fluoride is excreted in the urine, though some is taken up by the bones, resulting in a reduced incidence of fractures.
It is constantly released and excreted as bone remodels, which is a lifelong process, so it doesn’t ordinarily accumulate in the body.
Minimums and Maximums
In the United States the acceptable maximum is now 0.7 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water. The World Health Organization recommends levels between 0.5 and 1.0 milligrams per liter, so we are well within the recommendations.
Once a baby’s first tooth comes in you should begin brushing with fluoride toothpaste with a smudge of toothpaste the size of a grain of rice. This provides the minimum of 0.3 mg/l as recommended.
Up until ages 6-8, parents should oversee and assist with brushing, using toothpaste the size of a pea, and making sure kids know not to swallow it.
Fluoride mouthwash should not be used by children younger than 7 years of age, and they must not swallow it.
Who fluoridates water?
Some other countries around the world fluoridate their water supplies, such as Spain, Britain, Egypt, Malaysia, Ireland, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, and so on.
France, Germany, Switzerland, and others use fluoridated salt as a less expensive method. This allows people, even in small municipalities, access to fluoride where it would be too expensive to overhaul their water treatment systems.
The Takeaway
Unavoidably our shower filters can take away some of the fluoride, but only a tiny amount. Rest assured that there is still enough to meet the requirements of the world health organization.
As we’ve said before, we are big fans of real science here. We don’t need to scare you to make you use our products; and we don’t need to deceive you so that you don’t use someone else’s product.
We just tell you the truth, because we believe you are smart enough to make your own good decision!
Please feel free to look over our exceptional selection of high quality filtration products. We’re more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Just click here to go directly to our online contact form and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours!
