The subject of whether fluoride in drinking water is associated with lower IQ scores in youngsters is once again brought up by a recent study.
A review of 74 previous studies examining the potential effects of the mineral on children’s IQ scores was published in JAMA Pediatrics on Monday.
The study discovered a statistically significant correlation between children’s IQ scores and increased fluoride exposure. In an email, Kyla Taylor, the study’s author and a health scientist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Studies at the National Institutes of Health, stated that the more fluoride a child is exposed to, the more likely it is that their IQ will be lower than if they were not exposed. It was not possible to interview Taylor.
According to Taylor, children’s IQs drop by 1.63 points for every tiny rise of fluoride detected in their urine.
The removal of fluoride from drinking water was not recommended by the researchers. The authors of the study claim that the majority of the 74 papers they examined were of poor quality. All of them were conducted in nations other than the US, like China, where scientists measured the amount of fluoride in urine and water. The researchers pointed out that fluoride levels in China and other nations are often far higher than those in the United States.
In the United States, fluoride has been a part of public water systems for many years. Since fluoride was introduced, no studies conducted in the United States have found any discernible declines in children’s cognitive development.
Many cities around the nation have seen an increase in opposition to fluoridated water.
The removal of fluoride from public water supplies has already been approved by certain voters.
Dentists are concerned that the results could have negative public health effects.
Pediatric dentist Dr. Erica Caffrey, who chairs the Council on Clinical Affairs of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, stated, “What we have seen in areas where fluoride has been removed is that dental decay rates have increased dramatically.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Dental Association, and the CDC are among the prominent public health organizations that advocate for the use of fluoridated water.
Public health experts should examine the impacts of fluoride if more thorough research demonstrates a connection between the mineral and brain development, according to ADA spokesperson Dr. Scott Tomar. “There isn’t any proof yet,” he remarked.
Tomar, who is also a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago College of Dentistry, stated, “With the evidence that we have so far, that is not at all a clear case at this point, certainly not at the levels of fluoride that we use in community water fluoridation.”
He cited a December Australian study that revealed no connection between fluoride exposure in early life and impaired cognitive neurodevelopment. In 2012, University of Queensland researchers began recruiting young children, then ten years later, when they were teens, they followed up.
According to that study, children who regularly drank fluoridated water had a somewhat higher IQ. Queensland’s levels align with those suggested by the United States.
Although fluoride has been shown to help reduce tooth decay, some experts believe that any potential connection to neurotoxicity in children needs more research.
Dr. Bruce Lanphear, a health sciences professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada, stated, “At the very least, we urgently need to have an independent scientific panel come together to review the evidence.” Lanphear supported the new research with an editorial.
The recommended fluoride concentration in drinking water is 0.7 mg/L, according to the U.S. Public Health Service. According to Taylor of the NIH, there is insufficient information to assess if that level affects children’s IQs in the United States.
The new report was criticized in a second editorial by Steven Levy, a professor of community and preventive dentistry at the University of Iowa.
“There is very little evidence to support any concerns at these low levels,” he stated. “The ongoing benefits of community water fluoridation at this time strongly outweigh the flawed analyzes that are presented in this paper.”
In September, a federal court in California ordered that the Environmental Protection Agency should tighten water fluoridation laws, despite his inability to draw a firm conclusion that fluoridated water posed a health risk.
The campaign against fluoride worries Dr. Courtney Peterson, a pediatric dentist in private practice in Buffalo, New York.
She said, “I think people are going to freak out.” Without doing any research, people will see the headline and conclude that high fluoride levels will cause a host of issues.
Nevertheless, during the upcoming term of President-elect Donald Trump, the fight over fluoride is probably going to get more intense. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, had previously claimed that fluoride is “an industrial wasteassociated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss,” among other issues, without any solid proof. NBC News later reported that Kennedy stated that “fluoride is on the way out.”
There has never been a double-blind, randomized, controlled clinical research to investigate the potential effects of fluoride on children, which is a major area of contention in the fluoride controversy.
However, a study of families with infants younger than six months who use fluoridated or nonfluoridated bottled water in their formula and drinking water has been started by researchers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The children will be monitored for four years.
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