Re: Please summarize the recent Scientific American article on fluoride
- From: Matt <matt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:16:33 GMT
Steven Bornfeld wrote:
Matt wrote:Mark & Steven Bornfeld wrote:
Ironically, the largest number of kids with decay I see are those who try to avoid tap water, and those with special dietary needs. These would include many health-conscious families who wish to avoid fluoride specifically,
Not clear whether you should report your result to Broffitt et al:
I'm sure my impression is too anecdotal to be meaningful. I only hear about it when (usually the mother) protests that the kids eat no sweets and brush 14 times a day, so they CAN'T be getting cavities. With the Orthodox children with high caries rate, there are enough dietary differences that it would be difficult to develop any kind of control.
If there is general problem with caries among the Orthodox, that in itself would be an important finding. I wouldn't think it would be a very hard question to answer. It might be as simple as sending a finely-crafted questionnaire to fifty dentists who have a lot of Orthodox patients.
If there were a correlation, that would present a further research opportunity. I would list the possible fluoride and non-fluoride explanations of the historical decline in caries and try to identify those that did not affect the Orthodox. For instance, if it happened that the general historical caries decline went along with vitamin supplementation in breakfast cereals, and it were true that the Orthodox do not eat such cereals and they have a lot of caries, that finding would seem to be important.
Note that there seems to be strong evidence that water fluoridation _does not_ account for much if any of the general historical caries decline. And note again that the NYC Orthodox are drinking grossly-filtered but not necessarily fluoride-free water.
However, it does point out the possible information to be gleaned by keeping dietary information on our patients.
Yes, there ought to be a way to gather such information reliably on a massive scale through dentists---dentists are in a position to gather that information relatively cheaply. I use the word 'reliably' because it would seem that people are on average biased regarding fluoride---dentists and the public having suffered so many years of indoctrination and even intimidation that apparently is based on very little science.
Thanks,
Steve
I thank you for thanking me.
:-)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17899900?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
.CONCLUSION: While bottled water users had significantly lower fluoride intakes, this study found no conclusive evidence of an association with increased caries. Further study is warranted, preferably using studies designed specifically to address this research question.-----------------------------------------------------------
PMID: 17899900 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
See also: http://www.fluoridealert.org/2007research/08.html
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