With fluoride or without fluoride?
Where do we get fluoride for our priceless bodies?
Relatively a small portion of fluoride enters our body through our diet, for example when consuming seafood. However, recent research indicates that lately fluoride consumption has increased due to several factors, such as meat processing technology (when it is processed into ground meat with bones), rising tea consumption, and the use of some fluorine-containing pesticides, residues of which sometimes enter our food.
The main source of fluoride is considered to be drinking water. And here there is an important point — in different regions surface waters that are sources of our drinking water contain different amounts of fluoride. An optimal fluoride content in drinking water is 0.8-1 mg/L. But of course there can be a deficiency or complete absence, and in some places — an excess.
Therefore, in many countries around the world, there is practice of fluoridating drinking water. The first to start doing this were the USA (since 1945). In addition to the United States, water is fluoridated in Canada, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, New Zealand; in Europe — Poland, Serbia, Spain, and Britain. Whereas, for example, India, China, and parts of Africa are forced to purify their drinking water from excess fluoride.
The obvious question — what about Ukraine and fluoride?
Geochemists identify four main geochemical regions by fluoride content in drinking water.
Region 1. (fluoride absent or very low): Закарпатська, Івано-Франківська, Чернівецька, Львівська, Волинська, Рівненська regions;
Region 2. (low fluoride content) - Київська, Житомирська, Хмельницька, Вінницька, Одеська, Миколаївська, Херсонська, Запорізька regions and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea;
Region 3. (normal fluoride content): Чернігівська, Черкаська, Луганська, Сумська, Харківська regions;
Region 4. (high fluoride content): Полтавська, Кіровоградська, Дніпропетровська, Донецька regions.
But it’s worth understanding that such classification is quite broad and approximate. Within regions there are many local variations.
For example, in Odesa region the fluoride content in waters does not exceed 0.7 mg/L, but in local areas (Arziz, Tatarbunary, Tarutine) it reaches 5-7 mg/L.
Elevated fluoride content in water can be promoted by technogenic factors, such as for example, in the case of mass fluorosis among children in Sosnivka (Chervonohrad Iron Ore Mining and Processing Complex) in Lviv region. (Fluorosis is a disease in children caused by excess fluoride, appearing even before teeth erupt; a characteristic sign is white or brown spots on teeth, and in severe cases it is accompanied by changes in the shape of teeth).
Therefore, only your supplier or a corresponding certified laboratory that conducted water quality control from your well can provide precise information about the fluoride content in the water you consume.
And we sent information requests to Kyivvodokanal and to several of the most popular drinking water suppliers in Kyiv and can provide the following data:
the concentration of fluoride ions in Kyiv’s tap water ranges from 0.08-0.6 mg/L, while the concentration of fluoride ions in bottled water (unfluoridated) from suppliers ranged from 0-0.4 mg/L.
Other popular sources of fluoride are fortified (fluoride-enriched) food products — table salt (in Germany, France, Austria and Switzerland) and milk (Chile, Thailand, the United Kingdom). It should be noted that the practice of fluoridating milk is not considered as effective as water, since fluoride in milk forms insoluble complexes, which complicates its absorption.
Do teeth absorb fluoride from toothpaste and mouth rinses?
The answer is — yes. Because even when we ingest fluoride from food, it reaches our teeth through our saliva.
Oral hygiene products contain fluoride in fairly high concentrations, so the duration of brushing teeth also determines how much fluoride your teeth receive.
Conclusions:
Toothpaste with fluoride or without fluoride — depends on how much you consume from other sources, the most substantial of which is drinking water. An approximate information about fluoride content in drinking water regionally is provided above. It is worth asking your water provider about the fluoride content;
When using oral care products that contain fluoride, try not to swallow them unnecessarily and ensure that children do not do so. For these reasons, it is important for children to use child-specific toothpastes, where the fluoride concentration is significantly lower.
Photo by Michael Dam on Unsplash