Is Fluoride Safe for Your Kids' Brain
May 18, 2023Watch Dr. Tai's Thursday Morning Live Episode on the dangers of fluoride for your children's brain.
Dr. Tai loves reading the latest research and in this episode, Dr Tai reveals the research on how fluoride can cause neurological damage to your child's brain and lower IQ levels.
Most adults know to spit out toothpaste but with a child, they often swallow the fluoride and ingest the toothpaste as they are learning to brush. What happens then?
If your children ingest too much fluoride, the risk of developing fluorosis, which is a condition that affects 41% of kids and involves pitted and stained teeth, also increases. In some cases, high exposure to fluoride has also been liked to ADHD and other neurological dysfunctions.
In this video, Dr. Tai talks about Fluoride in water, in toothpaste, and other approved public products and it's level of effect on children.
In a research study by Harvard - School of Public Health, we learn that:
Fluoride seems to fit in with lead, mercury, and other poisons that cause chemical brain drain,” Philippe Grandjean, adjunct professor of environmental health at HSPH) says. “The effect of each toxicant may seem small, but the combined damage on a population scale can be serious, especially because the brain power of the next generation is crucial to all of us.”
The average loss in IQ was reported as a standardized weighted mean difference of 0.45, which would be approximately equivalent to seven IQ points for commonly used IQ scores with a standard deviation of 15.* Some studies suggested that even slightly increased fluoride exposure could be toxic to the brain. Thus, children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas. The children studied were up to 14 years of age, but the investigators speculate that any toxic effect on brain development may have happened earlier, and that the brain may not be fully capable of compensating for the toxicity.
Not Everyone Should Get the Same Dose
When fluoride is added to tap water, it is essentially a mass-distributed medication claiming to support dental health. However, that is a problem because it does not consider the differences in the people drinking the water spiked with fluoride. For example, take a newborn baby weighing in at 8 or 10 lbs, and compare them to an adult male who weighs 180+ lbs. The idea that they would be prescribed the same dose seems strange or even dangerous, doesn’t it?
That is precisely why medications come in different doses. Just like we have a “Children’s Tylenol” because not everyone should get the same concentration, tap water and its additives can negatively affect babies and young children.
Your Dose Depends on How Much Water You Drink
- The more water you drink, the greater your Fluoride exposure. Fluoride concentrations of 0.5 ppm are recommended in warmer climates where more water is consumed. As much as 1.5 ppm is relegated to water supplies in colder regions where less water is consumed on average. [1]
Your Fluoride Content May be Higher Than Recommended
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the agency that sets the limit on how much fluoride can be in tap water. And their action limit is much higher than the recommended level of fluoride at 4.0 ppm. That means there could be many times the “recommended” amount of fluoride in your tap water, and you wouldn’t even know it.
What they consider ‘acceptable’ may not be healthy to consume. Higher fluoride levels have been shown to cause Dental Fluorosis & Skeletal Fluorosis (meaning that it negatively affects the teeth by staining them and causing the bones to become more brittle).
The National Academy of Sciences reported that severe fluorosis, a disorder an intake of too much fluoride causes, can occur at just two parts per million. Now take a second and think of how much water you drink and how much you brush your teeth, and you can start to get a sense of your fluoride exposure. The problem with water fluoridation is that it is in addition to all the other sources of fluoride we are exposed to daily, such as fluoride supplements, processed drinks, and foods processed with fluoridated tap water.
Please contact Dr. Tai after watching this important message on today's program if you or your child is experiencing symptoms or if you have concerns about your health. Book a free consultation today.
