On the plus side, I smell a great opportunity for a longitudinal population study. 🤔

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[–] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

DISCLAIMER: This is only true to the population that does take care of their teeth, which means that it will actually negatively affect some people in a serious way.

While stopping the usage of fluoride in water is a bad decision that will lead to people having more dental issues, I would like to say that there are other developed nations that don't have fluoride in their water and it's not the end of the world. Because in modern times people use toothpaste and dental floss and have all of this routine that most people do twice a day, the fluoride in the water is not nearly as significant as that routine.

I don't have the research right now but I do remember that I once dove into it and most of the studies are pretty old and the dental hygiene that we have today did not exist to the same degree and therefore fluoride in the water was a more significant additive.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    You'd be surprised how many people don't brush their teeth, let alone twice a day, and let alone floss. Those who do the correct shit will probably not feel the difference, those who don't will lose the only protection they had left.

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  • Rural dental care is notoriously poor in the US. Also, for some ridiculous reasons, dental care is treated separately from medical care when it comes to insurance. I know people who can't afford to go to the dentist and one who is lucky to have access to low cost dental school care. Putting fluoride in water at least helps those who don't or can't take good care of their teeth.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yeah, I was actually wondering if it's still necessary if every toothpaste already has fluoride in it. It's probably still better to keep adding it just in case, since there's no real downside to doing it. But I guess we'll see in a generation what the long term effect is.

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