New study shows connection between fluoride consumption and hardening of the arteries.
Our previous post on fluoride brought up some startling facts on the dangers lurking in our water. Water laced with fluoride, that is. The list of ills associated with fluoridated water is long and scary: Alzheimer’s, asthma, cancer, arthritis, thyroid dysfunction are among them. On top of that, we know that fluoride doesn’t prevent cavities and may actually cause bones to become brittle. Now we have to worry about what the water we use for drinking, cooking, and hygiene is doing to our hearts and arteries.
Cardiovascular disease is the modern world’s top killer. Every year, more people succumb to it than to cancer. You can see the statistics online at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Now, there’s evidence that being exposed to fluoride increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. This month’s edition of the Nuclear Medicine Communications journal published research conducted on the heart health of 61 patients exposed to fluoride (available via PubMed).
This is part of the study’s results:
There was significant correlation between history of cardiovascular events and presence of fluoride uptake in coronary arteries. The coronary fluoride uptake value in patients with cardiovascular events was significantly higher than in patients without cardiovascular events.
Substitute “heart failure” or “heart attack” for “cardiovascular events” and the meaning becomes clearer.
There are many facets to heart disease: over-weight, sedentary habits, high stress and poor nutrition all play significant roles. You can control most of those factors. To gain control over the fluoride factor, it’s not enough to buy fluoride-free toothpaste. If an expensive reverse-osmosis water treatment system isn’t an option for you, the time-tested way to make a change is to demand change from the authorities and agitate for it.
More on water and health in the Middle East:
- Water Filter Uses Bacteria Beads to Eat Nitrates
- Water Pollution in Lebanon Exposed
- Israelis Are Drinking the Country’s Drugstores
Miriam also blogs at Israeli Kitchen.
Image via Ted Percival
Author: Miriam Kresh
Miriam Kresh is an American ex-pat living in Israel. Her love of Middle Eastern food evolved from close friendships with enthusiastic Moroccan, Tunisian and Turkish home cooks. She owns too many cookbooks and is always planning the next meal. Miriam can be reached at miriam (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
if you actually READ that study, you’ll find it is NOT about the use of dental fluoride or fluoridated water at all. In reality it was a retrospective study examining imaging data from 61 patients who received whole-body sodium [¹⁸F] fluoride PET/CT studies. PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scans use positron-emitting tracers, in this case the radioactive isotope fluorine-18, in the blood to produce a 3D image of the body and are an important diagnostic tool in oncology and elsewhere. How ignorant can people be??? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21946616
I can’t believe how many people have picked up this completely out of context quote and run with their own conclusions without READING the study. This study did NOT look at flouride as a cause of cardiovascular disease. It looks as sodium flouride as a diagnostic tool for evaluating cardiovascular disease. You don’t need to be a scientist to understand this, you just need to read the study!
If you wish to have your concerns about flouride taken seriously, you need to actually evaluate the research that you are claiming backs up your concerns. Otherwise they will be dismissed as fear-mongering and they should be.
Miriam- You still haven’t understood. Your general view about the dangers of ingesting fluoride is valid imo. However, the paper you highlight and quote from (Nuclear Medicine Communications January 2012) has absolutely nothing – repeat nothing – to do with any such danger. It provides no cause for alarm.
Your quote illustrates the danger of taking a small passage out of context. If you doubt it, please read the paper. It deals with the use of injected radioactive fluoride, in conjunction with PET scans, as a sensitive marker to reveal small sites of calcification in arteries. Please try to spare us all unnecessary anxiety!
Elaine, I’m sure that as careful parents, you taught your daughter good oral hygiene habits that keep her teeth almost cavity-free. According to studies, the fluoride probably didn’t have much to do with it. As for side effects – what can I say…I was also given fluoride, and in turn gave it to my kids. We all have health complications of one sort or another, but what percent of them stem from fluoride absorption, who can say? But now that the reality of fluoride toxicity is known, we have to work to eliminate the stuff from our water. Why accept yet another health-destroying element in our lives?
It’s not like being able to choose between organic or sprayed produce, or choosing to eat more vegetables every week. The difference is that we are absorbing fluoride all the time, with no control over how much or how often – unless we write letters and organize, or join existing local organizations to legislate against fluoridated water.
This is scary info. We gave our now 42 years old daughter fluoride tablets every day for years when she was little on the advice of our pharmacist. To date she has had only one small cavity and no other side effects. I sure hope she does not develope some of the horrid things mentioned above. As with other recommended drugs we find out many years later the effects it has on one.
2413ffd – If you read the post carefully, it says nothing about the uses of fluorine in medicine. It talks about the dangers of fluoride in the water we use for drinking and hygiene, obliging the population to absorb a drug without ever having asked for it and with no measured dosage. I’m sure fluorine has good uses in medicine.
This article by Miriam Kresh totally misrepresent the use of fluorine in medicine to detect certain types of cancer. Sodium fluoride has found renewed use as a bone specific agent with the advent of PET/CT in orthopaedic oncology as well as the diagnosis of benign bone disorders. Its favourable physical parameters present
advantages over conventional bone scintigraphy with 99mTc, and anatomical correlation with CT allows for more accurate lesion localisation. Read the true story about the benefit of using 18F-Sodium Fluoride in medicine for yourself.
http://www.molecularimaging.com.sg/18F%20NaF%20caa.pdf
This is a misunderstanding of the paper. You are not the only one to be misled, but trust me it has nothing to do with fluoride ingestion causing cardiovascular disease.
Hal – are you the author of the paper?