Whether topical fluoride ‘works’ or not depends on what one means by the phrase ‘it works’.  If one’s goal is to fill in small pores in the enamel surface with calcium fluoride deposits, then you would argue fluoride toothpaste ‘works’. In my opinion though this merely begins the process of tartar buildup on the teeth that people pay good money for to remove with regular dental teeth cleanings.

If one’s goal is to stengthen enamel, then it doesn’t work topically, because the ion doesn’t enter inside the hardened teeth enamel crystal structure from outside. In fact, normal teeth enamel only mineralizes in the absence of fluoride www.presidiosentinel.com statements by dentist Dr. Layton). After enamel forms, it is too hard for topical fluoride to penetrate, as proven in X-ray studies with fluoride gels soaking teeth.

Fluoride in blood, while a child’s teeth grow, enters directly into the forming enamel, causing enamel to be corrupted and abnormal, hence the often mottled appearance of the fuoridated enamel. Such spots are later subject to more decay and crumbling. If one’s goal is to produce fluoridated enamel, it must be added into the child’s blood. However, understand that fluoridated enamel is not the same as normal, hard, natural glass-like crystallized enamel. It is softer and teeth eventually become crumbly that require far more dental care than teeth with normal hard enamel. If one’s goal is to produce fluoridated abnormal enamel, then fluoride would have to be in the blood to ensure success of such a goal (whether topical fluoride enters into the enamel while enamel is being laid down or not I am aware of no such data). The goal itself however is ludicrous because fluoridated enamel is a pathology, not something that is natural, which explains the ADA concern to not let infants (who incorporate fluoride more rapidly than older children) drink fluoridated water. The ADA position to promote fluoridated water anyway for children past infancy with still-growing teeth is based on the original belief that fluoridated enamel was thought to be an improvement over natural enamel. It would have to be swallowed into the blood to form such fluoride enamel during teeth growth, hence the continued insistence that drinking water be drugged. The idea now is a vested interest on their part. Dentists Dean and Heard both confessed the original idea they had contained no proven data and in fact the whitening they noticed is now attributed to the high calcium in the hard Texas water–the fluoride in the water only correlated with increased fluorosis and mottling, and children followed through adulthood were found to have crumbly teeth interiors that required far more dental work because of the fluoride (Buck, The Grim Truth About Fluoride, 1964).  And that was natural fluoride.  Artificial fluorides are worse, depending on how hard a city water supply is, where the lower the calcium level, the more adverse the effects of the calcium-chelating fluoride ion.

To me, the argument that fluoride is safe and natural and has some benefit to some people is false, simply because every fluoridated city has an elevated incidence of tooth fluorosis (as one would expect if people actually drink the city water), proving that the act of fluoridation is itself overuse of a drug.  Fluorotic mottled enamel is the first visible sign of fluoride overdose poisoning.

And if one’s goal is to decrease cavities (it is I think the actual overall final goal for this action that everyone would love to achieve) then topical fluoride does NOT work. The best evidence that topical fluoride doesn’t work is from the Yiamouyiannis study of 39,000 people (Fluoride, the Aging Factor). This taxpayer funded study proved no decrease in cavities occurred in fluoridated kids of any age group to 15. Thus, neither topical fluoride from the water while being swallowed, nor from saliva with fluoride from the blood, decreases cavities. When artificial fluorides in water supplies were directly tested in the Kingston vs. Newburgh, N.Y. experiment, the absence of teeth were counted as ‘no cavities’, which temporarily masked the truth. After teeth finally erupted in the kids in fluoridated Newburgh with delayed teeth growth, the decay rate for the teeth was the same as in non-drugged Kingston, as found in the more careful studies by Yiamouyiannis for natural fluoride cities.

Belief in the idea that fluoride has a biological use of any kind in any organism is mistaken, even though it is believed by millions of people, where the statements I just made are always rationalized away with small anecdotal studies and repeated statements from people presumed to be authorities on the subject. Fluoride from toothpaste is responsible for 50% of the fluoride in blood, while the remaining 50% is from drinking water (NRC, 2006).  It is impossible for the brushed-on fluoride to hide and be harmless, and in fact is able to penetrate into gums with a final resting place the underlying bone holding teeth in place.  In the long run far more teeth are lost to gum damage than to cavities. The dean of Tulane University Dental School, Louisiana blocked as long as he could the injection of fluorides into water supplies because of his findings of increased gum disease during chronic exposure to fluoride.  We now have a rapidly increasing incidence of mouth cancers in the U.S., and the increasing presence of fluorides in pastes, mouthwashes, drinking water, and dental gels should be the first, not the last, culprit to consider as contributing.

Yes I too have a student who snuck into the bathroom and routinely ate toothpaste. She now has extreme learning disabilities and incurable joint pain that the doctors label as arthritis or another unknown entity, but she is only 25.

Another student has a genuine fluoride allergy, where the dentist finally stopped giving her fluoride dental gel treatments. Every time he did, her lips swelled up and her cheeks swelled and were reddened. Waldbott did extensive studies for decades and published that there is zero doubt that 1% of all people have fluoride allergy. He is the scientist who actually started the journal Fluoride in the first place.