The Truth About Fluoride | Dr. Staci Whitman & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | let's talk about fluoride i've already been accused of being a sunscreen denier no i actually

00:00:09.520 | believe that sunscreen exists i do occasionally use zinc oxide sunscreen a little bit i prefer

00:00:15.100 | a physical barrier because i'll wear a hat or something if i i don't tend to burn very easily

00:00:20.400 | but if i feel like i might burn i use a physical barrier um i'm being somewhat facetious here

00:00:25.300 | because people will say all sorts of things but um i did an episode about water a little bit about

00:00:33.560 | oral health certainly not the depth or expertise that you're providing today so thank you and i said

00:00:39.700 | yeah fluoride does a bunch of things my question was and remains why are we drinking fluoride but

00:00:49.240 | this relates to okay i'll tell this story briefly it's not as cool as your story i was taken to a

00:00:55.100 | dentist when i was a kid and they put me they put these like a like a mouthpiece with fluoride gel in

00:01:02.920 | it on the top and bottom and they sat me in a little wicker chair in front of a tv with cartoons and i

00:01:09.580 | hated it it tasted awful and it kind of like had this sour thing so i was probably six or seven

00:01:16.760 | so i drank it i just sucked it up drank it down turned around barfed all over the wicker chair oh my

00:01:24.680 | gosh fluoride's a poison but everything is a poison at high concentrations so most everything is a is a

00:01:32.060 | fluoride is a poison excuse me at high concentrations so i don't have anything against fluoride but it is

00:01:37.500 | a poison then the question becomes if something is not dangerous in a small dose or concentration

00:01:44.680 | what are its cumulative effects this is what this is what i have issues like people say oh going through

00:01:49.780 | the x-ray machine no big deal but what if you fly 150 times a year yes is it cumulative and so like

00:01:56.280 | the logic of the the sort of pushback from the traditional if i will uh community sucks like

00:02:03.380 | they're just not logical these are my colleagues sometimes too right just you go to the dentist to

00:02:07.700 | get an x-ray they're like running behind the the next wall put you in a lead shield and then they're

00:02:12.560 | like oh no it's no big deal well how many you know maybe how many times a year can you do this

00:02:16.840 | before it becomes ideal so my question is what is the rationale for putting fluoride in water in

00:02:25.780 | drinking water given that the contact time in the mouth is so short and then what what's the cumulative

00:02:32.600 | effect of bringing fluoride into the gut over and over and then earlier you said something and i've never

00:02:37.320 | thought about this the bones contain hydroxyapatite 60 i think you said 60 of your bone minerals are made

00:02:46.520 | from hydroxyapatite fluoride infiltrates the minerals of the teeth and replaces it so is fluoride going

00:02:52.740 | into our bones skeletal fluorosis okay so i'm not trying to paint a scary picture here but but frankly

00:02:58.460 | and people can probably tell my blood pressure goes up a little bit when people say oh you know you're

00:03:02.840 | anti-fluoride i'm not anti-fluoride but i just don't get the logic it doesn't make sense you're thinking

00:03:08.320 | critically about the about it like why would i continually bombard my system with fluoride

00:03:13.040 | at the level of the gut at the level of my bones if it's good for me tell me it's good for me but

00:03:19.680 | they're saying oh it's so that poorer populations don't have uh decaying teeth sounds like a good

00:03:25.460 | argument not even counter-arguing it but i can't piece together the logic and like most public health

00:03:32.040 | arguments i feel like neither side is is explicitly clear about what exactly they're arguing about and

00:03:40.380 | that's part of why i have this podcast to try and get clarity okay i'll do my best yeah and please

00:03:45.580 | don't worry that you're gonna offend anyone because i'll offend everybody and they've already said

00:03:49.980 | anything they everything they possibly could and they'll and they'll say more so i'm not afraid to

00:03:54.480 | open up these topics anymore i appreciate that and and i'll take the heat i well i will get it too

00:04:00.020 | don't worry i've already i have thick skin at this point but you have great teeth and they don't so and i

00:04:05.640 | haven't had a cavity for multiple decades and haven't used fluoride and portland isn't fluoridated

00:04:12.420 | portland is not it is not so let's talk about that so fun story uh back in 2011 2012 i was working

00:04:22.840 | on the pro water fluoridation campaign volunteering in portland picketing and handing out educational flyers

00:04:30.620 | um because i thought we needed it in our water and this is because that's how i was trained

00:04:37.160 | um and i just never questioned it i never picked up a journal to look at the other side i thought

00:04:43.580 | anyone speaking out against water fluoridation that's the tin hat brigade that's the woo woo caucus

00:04:50.080 | all the things i was that person the woo woo caucus that's pretty funny yeah so i went to a debate

00:04:57.960 | um in portland pro versus against i don't like those terms but it's just the easiest way to describe it

00:05:05.240 | and i was sitting kind of on the pro side and just waiting to see these pseudoscientists come out

00:05:11.940 | to to speak and i was so profoundly impressed with what they said and also had no idea that there were any

00:05:20.380 | concerns with with fluoride i'd never been taught that in dental school the endocrine disruption the

00:05:26.020 | neurotoxicity um this the skeletal fluorosis i knew about dental fluorosis but i at that point was of

00:05:33.340 | the mindset well it's just aesthetic you know but your teeth are stronger and the microbiome issues too

00:05:39.460 | so it didn't take long i just started rabbit holing and there's so much literature and this again this was

00:05:46.000 | quite a while ago um and more and more data in literature is coming out to question the practice so

00:05:52.280 | it's important to go back to the history of water fluoridation i'll try to be brief but

00:05:56.180 | in the early 1900s there was a dentist in colorado springs frederick mckay who noticed his patients had

00:06:03.440 | mottled um brown spotted teeth but they were really strong they weren't getting decay and so this kind of

00:06:11.400 | spread and they started kind of trying to understand the why and they realized there was a really high

00:06:16.600 | concentration of fluoride in the natural water supply that this community was drinking and this

00:06:22.820 | just kind of spread like wildfire with very little evidence-based medicine to back it because this was

00:06:29.440 | in the early 1900s now it was like the 1930s um so no long-term safety studies or efficacy studies and

00:06:36.980 | it was put in as an experiment in grand rapids michigan in the mid-40s after about a decade or so they

00:06:44.720 | noticed that caries rates cavity rates were going down and so based on this observation it just went

00:06:51.260 | like wildfire throughout the united states and i believe about 80 percent of the united states is

00:06:56.820 | fluoridated so the pro advocates if you will will say it's the greatest public health movement of the

00:07:03.660 | the century because decay was such an issue it's important to know dental decay is the top chronic

00:07:10.620 | disease globally in children and adults it's almost entirely preventable i think we've just normalized

00:07:16.160 | it you just get cavities but i'd like to point out we're one of the only species to get dental decay

00:07:21.800 | wild animals don't get decay our domesticated animals do because of what we're feeding them the kibble

00:07:28.600 | you know processed animal food so here we are so it's been controversial from the beginning you know

00:07:36.380 | epidemiologists endocrinologists neuroscientists have always challenged it saying this is a bad idea

00:07:42.460 | it's a highly reactive element you know the fluoride ion um can interfere with iodine um uptake and again

00:07:50.360 | skeletal fluorosis neurotoxicity etc so about seven years ago um there there was the people there's a federal

00:08:00.560 | trial in northern california but it was federal the people versus the epa it was a task a trial

00:08:06.220 | and this has been ongoing for the past seven years and basically they were saying where is your safety

00:08:12.240 | data epa on the long-term effects of water fluoridation so the idea was that if we put it in

00:08:18.340 | the water it's not a very efficient way to get fluoride to people but eventually it may will make itself

00:08:24.540 | into the saliva and have a topical effect coming out through the saliva they used to think systemically

00:08:32.240 | it was actually incorporating into the developing teeth and children making the enamel stronger that

00:08:39.420 | way but that's been debunked so now it's most likely still a topical benefit maybe a little bit of a

00:08:44.880 | systemic benefit touching the teeth um and we do know fluoride really needs to work topically we don't

00:08:52.180 | need to be ingesting it and that is all through the data and they're teaching that in dental schools

00:08:55.980 | now too okay but this is the easiest way to get fluoride to the masses because caries or cavities

00:09:04.040 | are such an issue now my first comment on this is we're not addressing the root cause of dental decay

00:09:10.400 | which is our food it's all the ultra processed foods again we didn't really see dental decay in humans

00:09:16.360 | until the agricultural revolution the industrial revolution and now the ultra processed

00:09:21.940 | food craze that's been happening the past many decades okay is that right so if we look at

00:09:26.700 | skeletons from dead people obviously well you can look at skeletons alive people skeletons and dead

00:09:32.400 | people uh from dead people that um died prior to 1900 how are their teeth 1900 they still have

00:09:41.700 | they would have decay but if you looked at about 10 000 years ago um very little you know unless they

00:09:49.120 | lived in an area with a lot of fruit abundance or honey like where are you getting your sugar from

00:09:53.680 | you know and you go pick some berries on a bush you're competing with the animals and the birds you

00:09:58.140 | didn't have much opportunity to over consume sugar um but you know there was the sugar trade and then we

00:10:04.880 | just sugar was a sign of wealth and royalty and people's teeth just rotted out and it was because of our diet

00:10:12.160 | so that's the root cause issue that no one's talking about you know we're just saying let's slap

00:10:16.880 | fluoride on it how about we educate and teach people what is really causing cavities but anyway okay so the

00:10:24.100 | task of trial was going on and the judge um judge edward chen was waiting for this national toxicology

00:10:32.800 | programs report which was under the department of health and human services and this is it reads like a soap opera

00:10:39.780 | to be honest with you um and it kept getting delayed and and um postponed and they wouldn't release it

00:10:46.820 | and finally under the freedom of information act he said this needs to be released and it said there is a

00:10:54.580 | strong correlation between increased fluoride consumption and iq issues in children um and so with that

00:11:02.660 | he he took this information and he made his ruling now this was after years of expert testimonies as

00:11:09.380 | well okay um saying there's an unreasonable risk to current water fluoridation practices in the united

00:11:15.540 | states this was his ruling that just happened late last year i mean it's this is very new

00:11:20.420 | and epa you now need to fix this you need to regulate this better

00:11:25.620 | what people will argue is a lot of the studies they were looking at that are showing lowered

00:11:31.780 | iq and children or neurocognitive issues it was at 1.2 or 1.5 milligrams per liter

00:11:38.900 | of you know um that was the concentration the united states we now do 0.7 milligrams per liter

00:11:46.100 | but what this that's per liter okay so how many liters of water do you drink a day this is the

00:11:52.660 | controversy so for example the american academy of pediatrics generally recommends pregnant women

00:11:59.780 | drink two to three liters a day um you might be cooking with fluoridated water making your pasta

00:12:06.260 | making your soup um how do we really know how much someone's getting exposed to what's their body

00:12:11.940 | composition how much do they weigh what are the other outside sources of fluoride are they swallowing

00:12:17.860 | their toothpaste fluoride is in many pharmaceuticals because it helps increase bioavailability especially

00:12:24.660 | um ssris and prilosec a lot of these have fluoride in them really yes ultra processed foods will have

00:12:32.900 | fluoride so the factory that's making your rockstar energy drink or your high c or you know whatever

00:12:41.060 | you're consuming they're not using reverse osmosis to filter the water so you're getting fluoride that

00:12:46.820 | way it's naturally found in green tea and black tea and this is not to make people worried about

00:12:51.860 | green and black tea i still consume them it's more to say how are we really understanding how much is

00:12:57.540 | exposed to and so they were finding that pregnant women um they follow there's many studies now but

00:13:05.300 | a famous one was rifka green study out of canada and they followed about 520 mother child pairs um they

00:13:13.140 | tested urinary fluoride and the mother per trimester averaged it and then followed these children to the

00:13:19.540 | age of three or four and did iq tests and found that mothers who had higher concentrations of urinary

00:13:26.260 | fluoride the children tested lower on their iq tests up to five to seven points and that's on par with lead

00:13:33.700 | okay on par with lead on par with lead yes and so that was in 2019 there's been so many more studies

00:13:40.100 | now so the judge ruled epa you need to regulate this better in that amount of time there was a

00:13:47.300 | meta-analysis that came out that further supported the ntp report by jama pediatrics okay and this is

00:13:54.020 | very controversial for these editors to be putting out by the way so i commend them um and also a

00:14:01.140 | a cochrane report came out cochrane collaborative which has said this again was very recent looking

00:14:07.140 | at all the data from water fluoridation water fluoridation isn't reducing decay like we thought

00:14:13.140 | it was it's only reducing decay by about one quarter a cavity per person one quarter of a cavity per person

00:14:22.900 | so that's not statistically significant so people will say well what gives why were

00:14:27.700 | cavity rates going down when we added fluoride to the water well it's hard to say maybe they were

00:14:34.980 | already just going to going down due to education more access to dental hygiene and toothbrushing

00:14:42.740 | flossing um but also we now have fluoride everywhere in our toothpaste so fluoride was put in the water in

00:14:50.100 | the 1940s it wasn't added to our toothpaste until the 1960s and now it's everywhere we get fluoride

00:14:56.260 | everywhere rinses the varnishes that made you vomit at the office and by the way that's very common that's

00:15:03.620 | very common and it's because a lot of those fluoride varnishes um number one fluoride you know it does have

00:15:09.780 | a poison control label on it you're not supposed to swallow it but these varnishes also have polyurethane and

00:15:15.460 | hexane derivatives and then it's what makes them so sticky yeah i i still loathe going to the dentist

00:15:20.500 | i think i think it's because of that that um early association yeah yeah so it's very controversial and

00:15:26.900 | unfortunately we've lost sight of the science it's getting buried in politics right now and it really

00:15:31.940 | upsets me because it's not a political issue we just need to look at the data and i feel like we're

00:15:37.380 | losing sight of the scientific method um we you know the american dental association the american

00:15:43.140 | academy of pediatrics is doubling down on saying we have to put fluoride in the water and for nothing

00:15:48.820 | else i think it's important to know 97 of the world does not fluoridate their water this is a very united

00:15:55.380 | states controversy um many countries removed it and found i think it was denmark germany japan they have

00:16:04.340 | very low decay rates and why is this well they educated their population on what's really causing

00:16:09.700 | decay and also made fluoride toothpaste accessible and i have danish relatives they have very nice

00:16:15.220 | teeth if you told me that there's no fluoride in the drinking water in england i might um i might uh

00:16:20.740 | like well you know sorry my english friends but that's the stereotype right that their teeth are bad i

00:16:25.380 | don't think that that's true any longer i think that that uh was true at one point that i think they're

00:16:31.060 | crowded and crooked too and a lot of that has to do i think with facial development as well i think

00:16:36.660 | we're we see a lot of um western european they do have that kind of dysmorphic face if you will probably

00:16:45.380 | from nasal breathing who knows why industrial revolution allergies mouth breathing etc why did it

00:16:51.140 | why does it seem more prevalent there um so that's this that's the the take the quick take on it and

00:16:59.220 | so i just think it should be a personal choice you know if you want to use fluoride you can go out to

00:17:03.860 | the store i mean you can get fluoride toothpaste at the dollar store now they give it out for free at

00:17:08.260 | many clinics um to me i just think it's a it's a medical ethical issue we're mass medicating a population

00:17:15.460 | without their consent and then the even bigger issue for me is no one's talking about this nor can i find

00:17:23.380 | any literature on it what is it doing to the gut microbiome because it is an antimicrobial so that

00:17:30.420 | would be a wonderful study nih if you're listening can we test you know people that live in fluoridated

00:17:37.060 | areas versus those that don't can we follow them maybe it's a prospective cohort study to just see how

00:17:42.420 | their microbiomes are different because it just doesn't make sense to me and why would we ingest

00:17:48.020 | something systemically with all these potential risks when we could just use it topically or actually

00:17:54.900 | talk about what's really causing decay if fluoridation worked it cavities wouldn't be the top disease in

00:18:02.420 | our country in our children and many worry well if we take it from the water decay may go up and it may

00:18:09.060 | i mean there's been they've they did this in calgary canada where decay rates went up but then if you

00:18:14.420 | actually look at the data the decay rates were already going up when they removed it but they

00:18:19.700 | only show you the data that they kind of want to show you for that so um but again it's a risk benefit

00:18:26.980 | analysis i mean i think dentists tend to be too focused on teeth and so you mentioned like if they say

00:18:33.540 | it's good for me i'll do it well good for what good for your teeth or good for your whole body

00:18:38.900 | or good for your brain and i think that should be an individual choice are you for as a parent

00:18:44.020 | do i want to choose one quarter less cavity in my child or do i want to preserve their optimal brain

00:18:51.460 | development i mean the the data that show deficits on par with what one sees with lead exposure that's

00:19:01.700 | the most striking yeah thing to me yeah and i'm a dentist i was trained to fix teeth i can fix a one

00:19:07.780 | quarter cavity in a tooth i can't fix a developing brain we have one shot to develop a brain we have one

00:19:14.180 | shot to grow a face you know it's really important i really appreciate you taking us through the full arc

00:19:20.020 | of the history of it i think it's extremely important that people take that in so they can start to form

00:19:25.220 | their own opinions and um you pointed out a number of um logical flaws in in just the the way the whole

00:19:33.300 | system is is um arranged right now which is this mass uh treatment of everybody with a with a potent

00:19:44.420 | chemical especially given the amount of water that people drink and cook with etc and without

00:19:49.940 | their consent and um and without a risk assessment so you're low decay rate i might be a really high

00:19:57.780 | decay rate you you don't need anything extra your diet your balance your microbiome's great i'm not

00:20:04.340 | eating well my hygiene's terrible you know we we can't just blanketly be treating everyone the same

00:20:10.340 | we're supposed to be doing risk assessments okay so i think that pretty much puts fluoride in a

00:20:17.300 | not in a box let's say on the shelf for all of us to look at i think this is going to be a very

00:20:21.940 | important aspect of public health in the year to three years to come with this new administration

00:20:28.340 | and bobby kennedy paying a lot of attention to fluoride and i really like what you said about

00:20:34.180 | trying to remove the political aspects of this if this becomes a um blue versus red left versus right

00:20:42.180 | thing we're never going to get to the heart of the matter um yeah and that would be really sad and

00:20:47.780 | the ones that would really suffer would be kids the children so a uh a non-partisan uh look at this

00:20:55.060 | which is how i heard everything that you said um just seems really critical uh

00:21:02.500 | where are they getting the fluoride so water fluoridation um the fluoride that they get

00:21:09.220 | is a byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry and it's it's called hydrofluorosilicic acid

00:21:17.940 | so as a byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry it's considered a hazardous waste and it's very

00:21:24.900 | expensive to dispose of uh but they have found that if diluted in theory and put it's an acid first of

00:21:33.060 | all so if it's put into our water system it is so diluted that it becomes safe but i will say it you

00:21:40.340 | know everyone can go research this and look at themselves but it does come in like cement bags with

00:21:47.540 | skull and crossbones on the front and they do have to wear hazmat suits to put it into our water

00:21:53.620 | um they're supposed to titrate it and i think what's interesting you know we're supposed to

00:21:57.220 | target 0.7 milligrams per liter um i've been involved in some educational campaigns and and

00:22:03.540 | have tested communities surrounding portland it's very hard to keep it in range you know and so there

00:22:09.460 | are some communities testing as high we've seen as 2.2 milligrams per liter which definitely falls into

00:22:15.620 | based on the the science and literature more concerning zone for neurocognitive issues and other

00:22:22.100 | health issues so um if you're concerned you can call your local water um bureau municipality

00:22:28.820 | i will say i don't think the federal government's going to have much control over this it would be

00:22:33.620 | nice if the epa stepped in um they have appealed by the way uh but it will come down to more like on

00:22:40.260 | the state level and local level and we're already seeing states like florida and utah um have run it

00:22:47.540 | through and initially done a we're going to ban this um as a mandatory thing in our state and i think

00:22:53.780 | it's uh north dakota kentucky there's other states picking this up too and other communities that are

00:23:00.420 | removing it or or not adding it to their water so it's an interesting time to observe all of this

The Truth About Fluoride | Dr. Staci Whitman & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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