Host: Welcome back to the final segment of the show. I’m really glad that we are going to end the show tonight with this conversation. It is a controversial topic, the topic of fluoride in drinking water because the MAHA movement has put this front and center, so should it be removed from our drinking water? Like it has in a lot of other European countries. So joining us now to talk about that is Texas-based dentist, Dr. Dave Frank. Dr. Frank, thanks so much for being here.
Dr. Frank: Good evening. Thanks so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be on this evening.
Host: Likewise. And I think five years ago I wouldn’t have even considered the issue of fluoride in water controversial. I was fine with it being in my water. I was fine with it being in my toothpaste. And then I learned that there were some issues surrounding kids’ IQs and possibly endocrine disruption. Tell us about it.
Dr. Frank: Sure. Fluoride has been a great thing for a very long time, especially here in America. Fluoride has been out from a public health initiative since the end of World War II, and really the intention of fluoride was to be able to give those underserved communities, communities that just were on well water that had really no access to other types of dental health, dental preventive health on giving kids more specifically a fighting chance. As a tooth develops and grows, we’re looking at mineralization processes, calcification processes, and sadly, as a small child, our teeth are much softer, and it takes time for them to harden up. So the public health initiative of putting fluoride in our drinking water was great. It was a really smart plan. But as the decades have evolved over the years, fluoride is really in a whole lot of other products just besides our drinking water, especially if you’re seeing your dentist routinely.
Not only are we getting fluoride in toothpaste, we can get prescription fluoride toothpaste, we can have fluoride in rinses. Believe it or not, some of the soft drinks that we drink daily have fluoride in it because of the water source of where the soft drink companies are getting their water from. So the concern comes down to play of how much of fluoride do we need, and more importantly, could there be too much fluoride? And right now in America, we’re really at a safer level of water fluoridation being at about 0.75, excuse me here, milligrams per liter. The concern is once we’re getting above 1.5 milligrams per liter, as other countries that have done research on this, like China and Mexico and Brazil, we’re finding out there may be some cognitive impairment, cognitive defects, and really kind of a lowering of a child’s IQ if there’s too much fluoride consumed.
So where this comes to impact for America is about how do we know how much we’re getting, and are we having too much? I don’t think it’s a crisis if you’re having some occasional tap water from time to time, but if you’re having all of these other ancillary types of fluoride with prescription fluoride toothpastes, fluoride mouth rinses, nursery water, fluoride tablets, drinking out of tap water, you may start to be getting into higher doses and levels. And I think that’s just our general concern right now in America is finding out where these public health policies still today as important as their good intentions from back in the late 1940s.
Host 2: Really well explained, sir, two things have happened. Obviously Europe is on a different path than us right now. They’re already on the reversal path. And then recently a federal judge ruled in America that the EPA has got to get involved and start looking at whether the risk referee both of those risks because they seem to be the two biggest events in this debate recently.
Dr. Frank: Right. And I really think we need to look at, from fluoride, what are we expecting to achieve out of this? I think as opposed to having these initiatives of how much fluoride we’re having in our water sources and whether or not we need to be cutting that down, I do think we need to be mindful of that. We need to get to the bigger source of what’s happening in our American diet. It’s as if we’re using these platforms and using bureaucracy to dictate how much fluoride we need as opposed to let’s avoid the amount of processed foods, let’s avoid the amount of simple sugars. Let’s avoid the amount of acidity that’s already in our American diet so that we’re not using fluoride as a crux. Almost to say that fluoride could be considered an ozempic for dieting. No, it’s about having the right food consumption. It’s about lowering your sugar content so we don’t have to be worried about cavities because the road to hell is often paved with good intentions.
Host 2: That’s very true.
Host 1: Indeed. And that’s pretty much the path to Washington as well. Before we let you go, I want to ask you if we do get rid of fluoride in water, it’s my understanding that using fluoride topically is better anyway, so if we get rid of the fluoride in the water, is using it in toothpaste good enough?
Dr. Frank: I think so, absolutely. I don’t think—there was a time before fluoride existed in the water and we all weren’t dying of major dental abscesses and we all weren’t walking around as dental cripples. The main thing that has really made dentistry and our problems with our oral health has been impacted by our sugar consumption, ease off on the sugars, and you’re going to find a whole host of benefits to include a much healthier mouth.
Host: Absolutely.
Dr. Frank: Having a toothbrush topically placed with some fluoride and floss and avoiding sugar consumption is going to put you on a right path no matter how much fluoride is in our public water supply.
Host: Winning combination. Dr. Dave Frank, thank you so much for being here, sir. Thanks for your wisdom on all of that. And that’s going to do it for us tonight. We’ll be back here tomorrow night.
