It’s a relatively known fact, at least in academic circles, that throughout the last century, IQ scores of western people have steadily raised.
However, in recent years, over the past 4 decades respectively, the trend in IQ scores seems to be downward[1]. How did this happen? Is it because of mass immigration from lower IQ countries? Or, as the study puts it, the causes of IQs dropping like flies (I am just exaggerating for dramatic effect) are purely environmental?
Or is it something else? According to the study I told you about in the preamble, there has been a noticeable decline IQ decline in Norwegian men born after 1975. The study quotes eating habits as a “probable cause”, along with more “screen time”/media consumption/wasting time on the internet, and even changes in the school curriculum.
A dramatic increase in processed foods consumption may also be an issue[2]. And then, there’s the elephant in the room: fluoride, which is the topic of our article.
What is Fluoride after all?
Conspiracy theories aside, everyone knows about fluoridated toothpaste, and also about fluoride added to municipal water supplies by our best friend, Big Brother, working in collusion (just kidding) with dentists. One may ask why it is in dentists’ interest to have a population with perfect teeth. I mean, they would go out of business if we all had zero cavities, thanks to fluoride in water, toothpaste and God knows what. But don’t mind me, I am just ranting.
So, fluoride is claimed to have a unique ability, i.e. it is said to prevent teeth from decaying. Looking at the booming dental industry after tens of years of water fluoridation and fluoride-ridden toothpaste (not to mention fluoride supplements), it doesn’t seem to be working so great, but let that go.
Fluoride is basically the negative ion of fluorine, an element which occurs naturally (in trace amounts) in plants, soil, fresh/sea water and some foods, like tea leaves.
Now, not all fluorides are created equal. There are no less than 4 types of fluoride present in our drinking water: calcium fluoride, sodium silico fluoride, sodium fluoride and fluosilicic acid. Calcium fluoride is the only one that occurs naturally in water from floor spar, while the other 3 fluoride compounds are artificially derived from rock phosphate. As an interesting factoid, rock phosphate is used for extracting uranium[3]. Seriously, check out the link.
The problem is that the fluoride added by municipalities in drinking water, as well as the one in toothpaste is not the naturally occurring type, calcium fluoride respectively (the least toxic of the bunch), but, take a load of this: industrial waste product[4] from the mining phosphate fertilizer industry, coming mainly from Mexico and China. Now, why would you want to drink that?
Moreover, the fluoride added by municipalities in water is not pharmaceutical grade, and it’s often contaminated with other substances, like aluminum, arsenic, lead, radionucleotides and other good stuff. On top of that, from a moral standpoint, if you drink fluoridated water, you basically ingest medication without your (informed) consent, and you have absolutely zero control over the dose.
Speaking of Dose…
Besides what you get from water and toothpaste, the US government allows a number of foods to be “enriched” with fluoride. Why? Well, that’s because fluoride is an excellent pesticide, and recent studies describe it as a neurotoxin. Fluoride attaches itself to aluminum, which is also present in tiny amounts in our water supply, hence it can pass through the blood brain barrier. And what happens then, you asked?
To quote from a Harvard University study[5] from 2012:
“The children in high fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ than those who lived in low fluoride areas.”
“Fluoride readily crosses the placenta. Fluoride exposure to the developing brain, which is much more susceptible to injury caused by toxicants than is the mature brain, may possibly lead to damage of a permanent nature.”
It’s interesting to note that Uncle Sam asserted in the past that water fluoridation is perfectly safe for you, yet there are studies going back to 1977, revealing that exposure at even minute amounts of fluoride, as low as one particle per million, which incidentally is the standard for US drinking water, accelerates tumor growth rate by a whopping 25 percent. The respective research was performed by Dr. Dean Burk, who was the head of the Cytochemistry Section at the National Cancer Institute for 3 decades, and it was revealed that fluoride transforms normal cells into cancer cells, thus producing melanotic tumors.
The same study said that animals (rats) drinking fluorinated water showed an increase in cancers/tumors in oral squamous cells, and some developed osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, along with liver cancer, also known as hepatocholangiocarcinoma. On top of that, fluoride ingestion increases the carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer) of other chemicals
Here’s Dr. Dean Burk explaining how fluoride causes cancer:
Epidemiological studies from the same year revealed that water fluoridation caused at least 10,000 cancer deaths. Also, the research noted that deaths from cancer went up following water fluoridation after comparing the ten largest US cities without/with water fluoridation.
If you are thinking that the amount of fluoride in water, toothpaste and various foods is very low, you should know that fluoride accumulates in the body, and even very low doses are harmful to heavy water drinkers, kidney/thyroid patients, not to mention babies and children. When mixed with fluoridated water, infant formula delivers 200x-300x more fluoride compared to breast milk.
Even the EPA admitted[6] that fluoride is a chemical “with substantial evidence of developmental neurotoxicity.”
And I tend to believe that brain health/overall health is more important than trying to reduce cavities via artificial water fluoridation (or whatever) with industrial waste product from China.
And if that’s not enough for you, take a load of this: fluoride bonds to calcium in the bones, making them brittle, thus causing joint fractures in the elderly, as well as bone cancer. Studies also linked[7] fluoride ingestion to Alzheimer’s disease. And at least 70 percent of America’s largest cities have fluoridated water.
Now, you do the math: is fluoride toxicity truth of fiction?
Resources
[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6674
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/feb/07/diet-children-iq
[3] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/uranium-resources/uranium-from-phosphates.aspx
[4] https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Fluoride-Hazardous-Drinking/dp/1603582878
[5] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/fluoride-childrens-health-grandjean-choi/
[6] https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_report.cfm?Lab=NHEERL&dirEntryId=200234
[7] https://www.nap.edu/read/11571/chapter/9#211
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