Articles

HOW SAFE IS FLUORIDE

 

18th Sept. 2000 FM Radio 786 Radio interview with Noori Domingo.

 

"IF FLUORIDE IS A" NATURAL"SUBSTANCE, WHY DON'T WE WANT IT IN THE WATER?

 

Lead and arsenic are also natural substances but we know they are toxic. If I offered you tea with an arsenic supplement in it, would you drink it? How about some cookies with a trace of lead or mercury? How about fluoride? Fluoride is toxic, full stop. It is not as toxic as arsenic, but it is certainly more toxic than lead. Fluoride is highly electronegative and even in the natural state: calcium fluoride or fluospar, it can interfere with energy fields inside the body.

 

Minute quantities of toxic substances do form part of our chemical make-up, but we don't need arsenic, lead or fluoride supplements! We get enough! We are being systematically poisoned by them as they enter our systems via the environment, our food and our drinking water. Fluoride is present in ever-increasing amounts in all our foods, beverages and oral hygiene products. Why waste money trying to poison us any further?

DO ANY OF US SUFFER FROM A FLUORIDE DEFICIENCY?

 

There are no known clinical cases of any fluoride deficiencies, anywhere in the world. Natural calcium fluoride leaches out of minerals and rocks and finds its way into some of our underground water supplies. People who drink this water can develop dental and skeletal fluorosis. We see good examples of this in the Northern Cape and closer to home, in Kraaifontein, near Stellenbosch where dental professionals are beginning to show some concern. They are not happy about fluoride supplements in these areas and advised us to make a safer toothpaste with a minimal dose of fluoride for children.

 

We did one better: a Junior toothpaste for kids with a homeopathic form of fluoride that is totally non-toxic. They can even eat the stuff! Just the right amount of fluoride is necessary to form a strong, even coating of tooth enamel. An excess of fluoride causes uneven tooth and bone formation, leaving irregular surfaces that contain both hard and soft patches. Teeth and bones may then become brittle because the weakened collagen tissue inside collapses and does not bond sufficiently to other minerals like calcium, magnesium and phosphorus.

Have you seen people with severe fluorosis - weak, blackened brittle teeth that snap off at the roots? They have to have their teeth capped or wear falsies for the rest of their life. So much for preventing tooth decay. Even with very hard tooth enamel, more teeth are being lost than ever before, due to gum disease. We have created a new disease and we can thank fluoride for most of the gum disorders we have today.

Although fluoride is involved in tooth development, it is only Mother Nature who knows how to supply just the right amount! As usual, we try to interfere and end up wrecking our teeth, our bones and our health in general.

HOW DO WE GET FLUORIDE NATURALLY, IF WE DON'T TAKE SUPPLEMENTS?

 

Most of our food contains traces of fluoride. Even a packet of potato chips contains fluoride. Three cups of ordinary tea or coffee yield about 1mg of fluoride and this is sufficient unto the day. Apart from tea and coffee, our wonderfully denatured fruit and vegetables that grow under the influence of super phosphates now provide extra fluoride at the expense of zinc, boron, molybdenum and other trace minerals. These essential micronutrients are left out of the equation in modern agriculture.

 

The curse of the modern fertiliser industry is the production of a waste product known as sodium fluoride. Phosphate fertilisers contain about 1% sodium fluoride. When this is tilled into the land, it bonds to boron and renders it inactive. Without boron, the plants cannot absorb enough calcium and magnesium from the soil. They look gorgeous and green from all the phosphates they are sucking up, but they no longer supply sufficient minerals for tooth and bone formation. You can see this tell-tale boron deficiency when you look at the broccoli in the supermarket. If the stem is hollow, there is a boron deficiency, and thus a calcium and magnesium deficiency.

ARE THERE ANY SAFE FLUORIDE SUPPLEMENTS?

 

If you feel you have to give your young children a fluoride supplement, then it is best to use tissue salts. You can get these little white pills at most health shops and the more enlightened pharmacies. CALC FLUOR D6 is what you can call a "natural" fluoride. The pills are made out of lactose, also known as milk sugar and they contain the frequency of fluoride that activates the correct fluoride metabolism in the body. These pills are different to the fluoride tablets containing sodium fluoride.

 

I know of a small child who died after eating half a container of those ones, you are familiar with them? We got them from the nursing home and clinics when our children were born........ We tend to forget about the other minerals we need for teeth and they include calcium, magnesium and phosphorus. We don't ever need to take phosphorus supplements, especially as it is the main ingredient of modern fertilisers. All these extra phosphates tend to displace the sulphur in our diets. We were given a spoon of cod liver oil every day when we were young. I can still squirm at the thought, but my mother insisted it was good for shiny hair and strong teeth and bones. She was right, the vitamin D plays a key role in tooth and bone formation.

WHAT ABOUT ANTIDOTES TO FLUORIDE?

 

We are told that "There is no known antidote to fluoride poisoning!" I have found a number of ways to help people to cope with some of the adverse effects of fluoride. Do not despair, there is a lot you can do to prevent disaster.

1

 

When it comes to mouth pain after fluoride treatment at the dentist, we find that applying a paste of calcium and magnesium to the affected gums and sensitive areas immediately stops the pain. In an emergency, chew an antacid like a Rennies tablet. One lady had been in agony for many weeks and after yet another fluoride pack from the dentist, she heard me talk about fluoride on the radio and drove directly to my house. I gave her some of my gum therapy toothpaste to put into her mouth and she sighed with relief. No more pain. I phoned her a week later and she was fine. So simple.

2

Antioxidants are very important. Fluoride depletes antioxidants, especially vitamin E that is responsible for controlling plaque deposits on teeth. Many patients tried taking Vitamin E supplements and found that the plaque on their teeth stayed away once it had been cleaned off. We also find that people using fluoride-free toothpastes containing natural ingredients like Tea Tree oil, Miswak or Aloe extracts have less plaque and don't need so many visits to the oral hygienist.

3

Vitamin C is essential to protect your gum tissues, especially the periodontal layer that connects the tooth to the socket in the gum. If your gums keep bleeding, stay away from fluoride, it eats up collagen tissue, and that causes gum recession. Do not suck Vitamin C lozenges. It strips away the tooth enamel. Take a pill or drink it in a beverage.

4

If you know you are going to have fluoride treatment at the dentist, load up on antioxidants beforehand and even take a good tonic or stress remedy, something like an adaptogen because going to the dentist can be very stressful to the body. Not only the fluoride, but also the fumes from the mercury in the amalgam. The anaesthetic is not exactly a health product either and once you have an amalgam filling in your mouth, you have a steady source of lead and mercury for life. Many of the symptoms of amalgam poisoning are contained in the Homeopathic materia medica under: Mercurius Solubilis, Plumbum and Argentum Nitrate. There are hundreds of symptoms, including mouth ulcers, bad breath, suppurating wounds and even genital sores that look and feel like a herpes infection.

Lead can make you crazy. With me, that explains a lot! But I take loads of calcium and magnesium every night to pick up heavy metal particles in my body and flush them away. If you suffer from a calcium deficiency, these toxic particles can sometimes stay bonded to the calcium that then gets deposited back into your teeth and bones. They once found lead deposits in a child's tooth, next to an amalgam filling. Now you know how it got there. Calcium and magnesium can overcome the electronegative effect of fluoride and they help to flush out heavy metals as a bonus.

5

A heavy onslaught of fluoride also affects the thyroid gland. It displaces the iodine that is needed for the production of thyroid hormones. If you are worried about your thyroid gland, try to protect yourself as best you can. Take antioxidants and supplements containing calcium, magnesium and boron. If your boron levels get critically low, you are unable to make stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. X-Rays can also damage the thyroid gland, especially when your teeth have to be examined at odd angles. Iodine is sensitive to radiation. If there is damage to the thyroid gland, scar tissue starts to grow. Excessive scar tissue blocks the areas that release the hormones and suddenly you find yourself having to take thyroid supplements one day. Vitamin E prevents scar formation inside damaged endocrine glands. Vitamin C prevents the destruction of the connective tissue.

HOW DOES FLUORIDE AFFECT OUR TEETH AND BONES?

 

Fluoride is essential for the formation of good, hard tooth enamel. Bones become harder with fluoride keeping minerals like calcium, phosphorus sufficiently attracted to each other. The truth is: our teeth and bones do need a little fluoride. What we don't need, is too much fluoride as this is what causes all the problems. As you know, dental fluorosis is the result of too much fluoride, especially whilst the teeth are forming between the age of three and thirteen.

 

When fluoride gets out of control, it is almost impossible to undo the damage. Fluoride sets off such a strong negative impulse, it attracts a volley of positively charged calcium molecules around itself. This phenomenon has inspired the use of fluoride to strengthen teeth and bones, by setting off little depth charges of fluoride to attract alkaline minerals. Unfortunately, if food and muck mix with this fluoride on your teeth, deposits of plaque, tartar or calculus soon develop. Fluoride also destroys antioxidant vitamins like vitamin E. Dr Frank Bertrand of the Safe Water Foundation of S A says that: a Vitamin E deficiency is the major cause of plaque accumulating on teeth. As you know, a Vitamin E deficiency is also associated with plaque deposits on blood vessels. This plaque keeps both the oral hygienists and cardiologists busy.

Fluoride is good business! If you are battling with plaque, think about antioxidants. There are some very good combinations available and you can fight back at fluoride as well as plaque with these. Foods like sunflower seeds are rich in vitamin E. Chewing these makes a good alternative to sweets and starchy things that encourage fermentation and the growth of bacteria and slime on the teeth. Sucking Vitamin C lozenges is not a good idea, because ascorbic acid can erode tooth enamel. Lemon juice does the same. It is best to encourage the natural flow of saliva over the teeth as it is the best mouthwash in the world - even better than a fluoride mouthwash!

Doctors give huge doses of sodium fluoride to ladies with osteoporosis, thinking it to be a smart way to increase bone density. Apart from the horrendous side effects of all that poison, such lethal doses of fluoride weaken all the connective tissue in the joints, tendons and ligaments, whilst the bones become very hard and brittle in places. Perhaps we need to pick at a few bones to see what is going on inside there.

We lose bone density at an alarming rate without understanding what minerals like calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and fluoride have to do with this process. Somehow you just take a pill and you either do or don't recover the bone loss, but lots of people can make money in the process! Especially when you have to scan the bones, it's a sure way to wipe out pension funds. Of course, when you break a hip, you can be set back for a sum of over R150,000. At least a third of the patients die as a result of this type of surgery, so it's like playing Russian Roulette with your bones.

If you know how to look after your bones and joints, you can run and skip and jump as hard as you like, even in your nineties. Bones have to be strong and they must be able to bend slightly under pressure. To achieve this, they consist of an inner structure, or matrix of organic collagen tissue that relies on proteins and vitamin C for its strength and flexibility.

Apatite

 

A composite crystalline mineral called apatite grows all over this foundation, like a grape vine on a pergola. Apatite has a hardness of 5: that is, halfway between a piece of chalk and a diamond. Apatite consists of calcium phos