New Report: Water Fluoridation Has Limited Dental Benefits, In Addition to IQ Risks
Fluoridation of drinking water provides limited public health benefits, including for dental health, according to a new wide-ranging report.
The new report, published by the Cochrane Review, says that any benefits for tooth decay are now minimal, because people have a much higher baseline level of dental health than they did 50 years ago.
The reports comes in the aftermath of an historic court ruling in the Northern District of California by Judge Edward Chen, who ruled that fluoride in drinking water poses an “unreasonable risk” or reduced IQ in children.
“In all, there is substantial and scientifically credible evidence establishing that fluoride poses a risk to human health; it is associated with a reduction in the IQ of children and is hazardous at dosages that are far too close to fluoride levels in the drinking water of the United States,” Chen wrote.
“EPA’s own expert agrees that fluoride is hazardous at some level,” he added, citing a report by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and National Toxicology Program (NTP) which “concluded that fluoride is indeed associated with reduced IQ in children, at least at exposure levels at or above 1.5 mg/L.”
To determine if water fluoridation leads to reduced rates of tooth decay, the researchers behind the new report reviewed over 150 studies comparing communities that do and don’t fluoridate their water.
They found that contemporary evidence shows water fluoridation may lead to only a very small reduction in cavities in children’s baby teeth over time. Fluoride in water reduced tooth decay only by about a quarter of one tooth, but even this conclusion could be reached “low certainty.”
“Adding fluoride to water may slightly increase the number of children who have no tooth decay in either their baby teeth or permanent teeth,” the study authors wrote.
“However, these results also included the possibility of little or no difference in tooth decay.”
The researchers added that studies conducted in 1975 or before showed a larger benefit of water fluoridation on tooth decay: a reduction of roughly one cavity in baby teeth. Those findings no longer apply to populations today, because they have better baseline dental health and are also exposed to other sources of fluoride, such as toothpaste.
