Potential Risks of Fluoride in Your Tap Water
Fluoride is a mineral that can be found in soil, food, and water. After discovering its protective properties, fluoride has been added to public supply waters to reduce levels of tooth decay. It has been synthetically manufactured and added to drinking water, mouthwash, and toothpaste. However, once levels of fluoride are increased in supply water, a lot of adverse signs will show, like vulnerable bones and teeth, as well as problems with neurological development.
Here are some detailed potential risks of fluoride that you should be aware of.
Dental Fluorosis
If your kid is drinking water with a high concentration of fluoride, then there is a high probability that they might get dental fluorosis. Being exposed to fluoride, especially children whose teeth are still developing, can cause dental fluorosis, and this could be identified if you notice white streaks on the enamel of teeth. While the health of your teeth won’t be affected, the discolouration will take place. It is best to avoid that by installing a water filter for removing fluoride. Fluoride is useful, but excessive exposure to it could be toxic, and since we have already taken our fair share of fluoride from many sources, removing fluoride from tap water will not accelerate the decay of our teeth; in fact, they will be protected.
Skeletal Fluorosis
Being excessively exposed to fluoride can be extremely dangerous, causing skeletal fluorosis. The effect won’t be immediate; it will develop over the years, causing joint stiffness and pains, and will eventually impair joint movements. It can also cause bone fractures. People’s susceptibility to fluoride varies. It differs according to their degree of exposure and the duration in which they were exposed. In all cases, fluoride can be dangerous. Skeletal fluorosis is hard to distinguish from other bone and joint diseases, since it has the same symptoms of these diseases, which might cause treatment complications for patients. Accordingly, it is best to avoid getting skeletal fluorosis altogether by filtering tap water in the first place.
A Risk to Insufficient Kidneys
Kidneys are the organs that protect the body from fluoride toxicity by expelling it in the urine, but as people grow older, or due to kidney disease, kidney fails to excrete fluoride from the body, which makes the person more susceptible to skeletal fluorosis, and might cause osteomalacia, a disease known for softening bones, which usually occurs with advanced kidney diseases. Patients of osteomalacia must drink filtered water. It is best for people with kidney diseases to drink filtered water as well.
Thyroid Disease
The thyroid gland is important for the body’s metabolism and human health in general. So, any substance that tampers with the function of the thyroid gland can compromise our health. Fluoride, on the other hand, has been used to treat hyperthyroid patients for its effects against hyperthyroidism, which means that fluoride can encourage hypothyroidism. Fluoride can also affect the parathyroid gland, which in turn will cause hyperparathyroidism. Hyperparathyroidism can cause high secretion levels of parathyroid hormones, which removes calcium from bones and increases calcium in the blood. Depleting calcium from the bones makes them fragile and susceptible to fractures.
Neurological Development
It is known that exposure to high levels of fluoride can lead to neurotoxicity, which means that memory, learning, and cognitive abilities, in general, will be affected by high fluoride consumption. Even more, fetuses are the most vulnerable to neurotoxicity inflicted by fluoride exposure, which will lead to poor cognition in the future, and lower IQ, unlike children who are protected against fluoride as fetuses. This means that there is a tight correlation between fluoride exposure and cognitive capabilities, so it is best for pregnant women to be cautious as they drink tap water and to make sure that fluoride levels in it are safe. Using filtered water is even safer.
Cardiovascular Disease
While fluoride is more associated with skeletal vulnerability, there is evidence that it can also cause cardiovascular diseases. Many factors might cause these diseases like life choices, genetics, or even pollutants. However, fluoride can accumulate in the cardiovascular system and lead to hypertension, or high blood pressure, electrocardiogram abnormalities, arterial calcifications and so on. These diseases have been identified in both humans and animals that were exposed to fluoride. Even more, there were high levels of fluoride in the blood of patients who suffered cardiac failures.
High levels of fluoride can have dangerous effects on people, so it’s best to steer clear from highly fluorinated water. If you suspect that your water contains excessive amounts of fluorine and members of your family start to exhibit signs like discolouration of teeth or bone problems, then you should definitely protect yourself and your loved ones from fluoride’s potential effects using a water filter.
