The Food and Drug Administration will work to attract fluorides supplements for children from the market, the agency announced Tuesday.
The movement comes at the same time as a wave of accounts that are aimed at limiting the use of the mineral, which has long been added to public water stocks because it can prevent the teeth and can prevent cavities. In March, Utah became the first state To ban the addition of fluoride to public water. Legislation that limits fluoridated drinking water has also been introduced in Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, Tennessee and Montana. Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said He will tell the centers for disease control and prevention to stop recommending fluoride in water.
The FDA said that it will revise the safety of integrated fluoride products for children by 31 October, with reference to a series of potential health risks that are not based on rigorous research.
“The proof is incredibly weak to make this type of moving,” said Dr. Scott Tomar, a dentist of public health and oral epidemiologist at the University of Illinois Chicago. He added: “You do not use a policy for public health based on one or two pretty weak assessment articles.”
Why do dentists advise fluoride supplements?
Dentists write fluoride tablets, sucking tablets and drops for children living in areas without fluoridated water or who run a high risk of developing cavities, which can be because they have large quantities of plaque, do not regularly go to the dentist or have family members with dental diseases.
These supplements are designed to offer a similar amount of fluoride if what people usually get from drinking water.
Fluoride drops and tablets offer an extra level of exposure that prevents tooth decay, beyond the quantities of fluoride that children receive from toothpastes and mouthwashes, Dr. F. Perry Wilson, a doctor and chronic disease pidemiologist at the Yale School of Medicine. That is because supplements, such as fluoridated water, enter the bloodstream and then in saliva.
“You really need a constant level to bathe your teeth,” said Dr. Wilson. His own children recorded fluorides supplements that grew up, he said, on the recommendation of their dentist.
Do they wear health risks?
The FDA pointed to a series of health problems about fluoride supplements. In a press release, the agency said that fluoride can change the intestinal microbiome in children and a Overview of Studies About the subject.
This assessment noted that high levels of fluoride can disrupt the microbiome of rats, but can also be called ‘investigated’ in people.
“Me and my co-authors were quite clear in our article that there is little evidence to suspend the use of fluoride and that further research is needed,” Dr. wrote. Gary Moran, a professor of Trinity College Dublin and the main author of the newspaper, in an e-mail. Dr. Moran added that although there is only limited evidence about fluoride and microbio incidence of microbio, there is “extensive” research into fluoride products and the prevention of tooth decay.
The FDA pointed to it Another paper Those studies on fluoride and the intestinal microbiome assessed. Every study in that review concluded that consuming fluoride on or below the level has recommended the World Health Organization – which is higher than the amount of fluoride that is usually found in drinking water in the United States – increases the growth of good bacteria in the intestine. Too much fluoride discouraged the growth of those bacteria.
“Fluoride has many proven health benefits, in particular with regard to dental health, and the research we have done, people should not discourage small amounts of fluoride,” wrote Caroline Orr, a researcher at the University of Tesside in England and an author of that study, in an e -mail.
The amount of fluoride that people get from supplements is not enough to kill bacteria in the gut, Dr. Steven Levy, a public health dentist at the University of Iowa.
Dr. Wilson added that untreated cavities can cause infections that require antibiotics – of which has been demonstrated The microbiome influences considerably.
The FDA also mentioned concern about the relationship between high levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in children. A federal analysis of 74 studies, published this year, has found A connection between higher exposure levels and lower scores. But external researchers have noted that the recorded studies came from outside the United States and criticized the newspaper for having methodological defects. And even an author of that study said that the newspaper was not intended to “assess the broader implications of the public health of water fluoridation in the United States.”
The FDA release also warned of an unproven connection between exposure to fluoride and thyroid problems. The agency that was associated with an evaluation of studies into thyroid function and exposure to fluoride, which found a possible link between high levels of fluoride exposure and thyroid diseases, although the evidence was not consistent and “too limited to draw conclusions”, the Paper authors wrote.
Many of the studies in that review “come from places like India, where the levels of fluoride that are consumed are nothing as we would ever see here in the United States,” said Dr. Patricia Braun, a pediatrics professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and a member of an American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Oral Health.
The FDA also suggested a connection between fluoride supplements and weight gain.
“It just won’t,” said Dr. Tomar. He added: “I have never seen a credible study that showed that the exposure to fluoride increased weight gain.”
Dr. Wilson said that although there are many studies that indicate potential risks to fluoride, “none of them is of very high quality, they all have methodological problems.”
That does not mean that there is no risk, he added. “That is the nuance. We just don’t know. And so it’s easy enough, rhetorical, to say,” Oh, well, if you don’t know, shouldn’t we be mistaken on the side of caution? ” But then you lose the advantage, “Dr.
“Everyone forgets that every choice you make here has costs.”
What other options exist to protect the teeth of children?
If children do not have access to fluoride supplements – and if they are not in an area with fluoridated drinking water – they can use fluoridated toothpaste and mouthwashes. However, they are not always enough to protect against cavities, Dr. Wilson, Because they do not offer a consistent level of fluoride in the mouth. Dentists also offer fluoride treatments at their offices, although that depends on children who regularly go to agreements.
Dr. Marty Makary, the Commissioner of the FDA, wrote in a statement that limiting sugar and practicing good oral hygiene was the optimum way to prevent cavities.
Doctors and researchers said that that was not always realistic.
“If you can control the excessive sugar intake of the public and get them all good oral hygiene, you should get more than one Nobel Prize,” said Dr. Levy.
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