Fluoride in tap water and thyroid function

[VitaminB12]

Has anyone else read about or experienced the effect of fluoride on thyroid function?

According to The Complete Idiot's Guide to Thyroid Disease by Dr. Alan Christianson and Hy Bender copyright 2011, "Fluoride is so effective at reducing T4 and T3 production that it's used as a a treatment for hyperthyroidism. If you're on the verge of being hypothyroid, though, fluoride is likely to push you over the edge. And if you're already hypothyroid, fluoride can make your condition even worse."

The book recommends installing a reverse osmosis filter for your tap water or drinking bottled water. I have no idea how much this costs and whether it can be uninstalled as I rent an apartment.I know some bottled water has fluoride in it and it would really add to my grocery bill.

Water is my beverage of choice so this concerns me. I drink a lot of water from the tap as is and make hot tea with it daily.

[Barb135]

I don't know how Canada would compare with the U.S, because there are a lot of variables, like population, the number of cities that use fluoride, the number of people who have access to fluoride-free (other than naturally occurring) water, etc.  

If you're concerned about the fluoride in your water, you could call your water purveyor and ask for a breakdown of all the contaminants in the water.  They should be willing to provide that. Alternatively, you could switch to bottled water, or as discussed, above. a filter that would be appropriate for your situation, since reverse osmosis equipment tends to be very expensive and, typically, takes a lot of room, plus knowledge to operate it properly.

[Barb135]

I doubt seriously that political leanings are caused by fluoride in the water.  That seems to be a bit of a stretch.

There's a huge difference between putting arsenic in water and putting fluoride in water.  Both are naturally occurring and the limits for arsenic are much lower than those of fluoride, because arsenic is much more dangerous and has no perceived benefit, whatsoever.

I'm not necessarily a "fan" of fluoride in drinking water, but, having worked in the water treatment industry for over 20 yrs, this seems to be much ado about nothing, since the limits of fluoride are very strictly regulated.  Testing must be done at regular (daily, continuous on some very large systems) intervals in order to insure that fluoride levels remain within certain limits.  At those limits, it's not "dangerous" and every water system is required to send out Consumer Confidence Reports, annually, to let customers know the quality of the water they drink.

[flyingfool]

I too recently went Fluoride free toothpaste.  And I'm going to have to look into a revers osmosis filter for drinking water.  As my community does Fluoride the water.  I don't go crazy over this and I'm not picketting with signs outside the water treatment plant.  I wish they would stop adding it. But I guess not enough to go public with it as some sort of mission or cause.  All I can do is not limit the amount of Fluoride we injest by myself.

But when I'm thirsy I'm not going to go without water simply because my only choice is the public drinking water.  And I drink public drinking water at work versus having a soda as I think even fluorinated water is still more healthy than a soda for example.

[VitaminB12]

Hi, Thanks for your post. I agree with you. I am opposed to it. I choose to use a toothpaste free of fluoride.

[flyingfool]

So why do cities who normally all have Fluoride almost exclusively heavily vote very far left with big government.  While the rural area's in the USA that predominately do not have Fluoride in the water vote against big government???

As everyone points out. There are all sorts of places where you can obtain Fluoride in normal diet and air etc.  So that alone provides enough Fluoride and there is no way that it needs to be added to drinking water.

You can also add in arsenic into the drinking water at low concentrations and that if the natural occuring water does not have enough you can add more.  And it may not do any preceived harm. But who in their right mind wants their government ADDING arsenic into thier drinking water.  Yet we do this with Fluoride every single day.

Fluoride is toxic just like Arsenic.  But we don't add Arsenic to our drinking water now do we!

With the significant lack of evidence that Fluoride even helps teeth it is absolutely insane that our government is requireing it to be added to our water.

[VitaminB12]

Here's a link from the USDA that provides detailed information on nutrient content of thousands of foods (http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/nutrients/index). You can search for individual nutrients and sort the lists alphabetically or by nutrient content.