Fluoride Explained: Benefits, Risks, and Everything You Need to Know with Dr. Jeremy Lowell

Julia Ward, MD with Dr. Jeremy Lowell

About the Expert

Julia Ward, MD

Dr. Julia Ward

Dr. Julia Ward is a compassionate and forward-thinking physician with over a decade of experience in functional medicine, known for her systems-based approach to healing chronic illness. She is the founder of Balanced Body Functional Medicine, where she helps patients uncover the deeper drivers of disease and restore health by addressing the body as an interconnected whole.
After earning her medical degree from the University of Southern California, Dr. Ward served in the U.S. Navy, practicing general, urgent, and emergency medicine both domestically and abroad. Her own personal struggle with unexplained fatigue led her to question the limitations of conventional medicine and ultimately guided her toward functional medicine.
While she initially focused on identifying root causes, Dr. Ward’s approach has continued to evolve. She now emphasizes the importance of how and when the body is treated—not just what is treated. Through her Balanced Body System Reset™ framework, she focuses on restoring nervous system balance, improving mitochondrial function, reducing inflammation, and addressing root causes in the right sequence to create lasting and meaningful healing.
Dr. Ward integrates advanced diagnostics, personalized care plans, and innovative therapies such as hyperbaric oxygen and ozone therapy, while also emphasizing foundational elements like nervous system regulation, lifestyle, and patient engagement. She believes that healing is not a one-size-fits-all process, but a guided journey that requires both strategy and active participation.
A lifelong learner, Dr. Ward continues to expand her expertise in areas such as precision genomics, brain health, and complex chronic illness. She is deeply committed to helping her patients not only feel better, but truly understand their bodies and take ownership of their health.
A devoted wife and mother of five, Dr. Ward brings both clinical expertise and personal insight to her work, with a mission to transform the way chronic illness is understood and treated.

Guest

Dr. Jeremy Lowell

Co-founder of Aspen Smile Dentistry, PLLC

Dr. Jeremy Lowell, a Virginia resident, graduated Magna Cum Laude from Georgetown University School of Dentistry (Washington, D.C.) in 1985. He achieved his undergraduate degree, a BS in Biology, from Loyola College in Maryland.

He established and maintained a flourishing dental practice in Woodbridge, Virginia for 21 years and served on the Northern Virginia Dental Society Mediation Committee for 15 years. With the deepest of love for Colorado, he became an independent contractor, working in the practice of Dylan Gibson, DMD in 2006. Along with his son, Dr. Ian Lowell, they established Aspen Smile Dentistry, PLLC in 2018, purchasing Dr. Gibson’s practice, upon his retirement. The Aspen Smile father/son team is dedicated to the Best and Healthiest Smiles!

More from Dr. Jeremy Lowell on DrTalks

When the fluoride was not in the water, the tooth decay was rampant. So it was really 1945. To answer your question directly, that Grand Rapids, Michigan became the first city in the world to floor day.

Its drinking water and the Grand Rapids Water fluoridation study was originally sponsored by the US Surgeon General, but eventually taken over by the National Institute of Dental Research.

After 1948, and over the next 15 years, researchers monitored the rate of tooth decay among Grand Rapids children who now had beautiful pearly white, smooth teeth.

And the decay rate, the caries rate we call decay caries in dentistry was so low it dropped by 60%. And that's huge, right? Yeah, right. That's huge. Revolutionized dental care.

I mean, the number one statement I have heard in my entire career is I hate going to the dentist. Welcome to Doctor Talks, the podcast where every episode leads to a healthier you.

Join us as we navigate the world of optimal health, uncovering groundbreaking strategies to conquer chronic disease. In each episode, we'll bring you the latest insights from leading health experts, medical innovators, and wellness warriors.

If you're seeking to transform your health journey, or if you're looking for answers to burning questions. You've come to the right place. Get ready to unlock the secrets of lifelong health and vitality.

This is Doctor Talks, real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most. All right, welcome to today's episode where we're honored to have Doctor Jeremy Lowell, D. D. S., join us.

Doctor Lowell is not just a renowned dentist with an incredible 39 years of clinical experience, but also a visionary in the world of health, fitness, and holistic wellness.

Over his distinguished career, he's dedicated himself to enhancing the lives of his patients through exceptional care and an integrative approach to health beyond dentistry.

Jeremy is a true renaissance man in wellness. Since 1996, he's been the proud owner of ten Gold's Gyms, where he and his wife, Lori, have redefined member experiences with passion and purpose.

Today, they have also founded Drishti Beats, a global online yoga teacher training company that empowers individuals to become confident and knowledgeable yoga teachers.

From pioneering patient care to fostering fitness communities and advancing yoga education. Jeremy's commitment to holistic well-being and his profound attention to detail have earned him deep respect in multiple industries.

His insights are invaluable, and we can't wait to dive into this remarkable journey and his philosophy on life, health, and balance. So let's get started. Welcome so much.

Hey, thank you so much. So good to be with you. Great to have you. Really, appreciative that you took the time out to do this. Because I have a lot of questions, about fluoride in our public water.

Okay. Yeah, it seems to be quite in the news recently. Not the first time in my career I've been asked them, so. Sure. Okay. So, can you give us a little bit of a historical context about when water fluoridation.

When we. When did we start putting fluoride in the water? And to what end? Okay, so, really, it goes all the way back to 1901, and, there were only 45 states in the United States at that time.

A damaged school graduate who was named Frederick McKay, who graduated from dental school on the East Coast. He actually came to where I live right now in Colorado, to a town called Colorado Springs, Colorado.

And he was blown away by the fact that so many people in Colorado Springs who were really native from that area. And and again, when we think about people going from the East Coast out west, right, really looking at the people who were born there and grew up there, how they had this grotesque sort of brown staining in their teeth.

In some of them, their entire tooth was almost the color of chocolate brown chocolate candy. Right? There was no mention at all in the dental literature at that time.

About round stained teeth. His memoirs noted that the local residents blamed the problem on several strange factors, like eating too much pork, consuming inferior milk, or drinking calcium rich water.

That was all sort of an old wives tale of that time. And then 1909. So about seven years later, he invited a person who is really credited with being the founder of modern dentistry, a gentleman by the name of doctor GV black, and that gentleman came to Colorado Springs to collaborate with him because GV black, who was from Illinois, had never seen nor heard of this brown staining.

And so at that point, there was almost 90% of the city's locally born children of Colorado Springs who had some sort of brown stain. When GV black returned back to Illinois, he nicknamed this Colorado brown stain.

Fluorosis f l u o r o s s and doctor Ward. You've heard of osseous fluorosis, bony fluorosis where there is issues with the bone related to excess fluoride.

We'll get to that in a little bit. Well, GV black died in 1915. And really before he died, right. He basically we talked about this in all of his later literature and memoirs and that sort of thing with the idea of there's other parts of the country, from the East Coast to the Midwest to other parts where there wasn't this brown stain seen at all.

But the children who were born in Colorado Springs, their teeth turned brown as their permanent teeth came in, not necessarily in the baby teeth, but more in the permanent teeth.

And in that regard, he also noted, along with doctor McKay, who was in Colorado Springs, that they didn't have any decay in their teeth either. So there was this assimilation of really heavy, corrosive black stain.

And this idea of no decay. And not only was there a brown stain, but they were sort of modeling almost like a, surface imperfection that was occurring, like the, the teeth were almost so brittle that they didn't have the nice smooth surface that many of us see today.

The other thing, again, going back to the idea of Colorado Brown stain, later named by black as fluorosis in 1923, doctor McKay decided he was going to travel across the Rocky Mountains to a place in Idaho called Oakley to meet parents who in some of the newspapers were reading that hey, they're talking about this Brene Brown stain.

We have brown stain in our teeth to. And the parents told McKay that the stains began shortly after children were born and the town of Oakley, Idaho, had constructed a communal water pipeline to a warm spring about five miles away from Oakley, and McKay analyzed the water but didn't find anything suspicious at all, and he advised the town leaders that maybe they want to abandon that pipeline and go to a nearby spring as a different water source, and when they did, the next bit of children that were born over the next several years did not have the brown stain.

So moving forward in history a little bit, doctor McKay met with the then United States Public Health Service Doctor Grover Kempf, and they traveled to a place in Arkansas called bauxite.

And that company owned town. Bauxite was owned by the Aluminum Company of America. To investigate reports of familiar brown stains, and the two of them together.

Both McKay and Kempf from the United States Public Health Service discovered that there was something really interesting, namely that the mottled enamel, the sort of irregular surface, was really prevalent among the children of bauxite, but again, not existent in a town maybe five miles away.

Doctor McKay studied that water. Didn't really find anything in that either, and they published a report on their findings where eventually the chief chemist in Pennsylvania of Alcoa, the Aluminum Company of America, a mister H, the Churchill, the chief chemist, he had spent the last couple of years refuting claims that aluminum cookware was poisonous.

And it was he who conducted a photo Spectrographic analysis on the water, and it was he who was the person who found in the water. Then, in fact, after they refuted that the water was tainted, a few times, get another sample, get another sample that in fact, what was in the water in all of these towns, from Colorado Springs to bauxite up into Idaho, was fluoride.

And then, moving forward to 1931, the head of the dental hygiene unit at the National Institute of Health asked a senior chemist at the National Institute of Health to try to replicate these studies on the water.

And two years later, 1932, when science was getting more and more precise, that senior chemist Doctor Elva, he developed a state of the art method to actually measure the fluoride levels in the water to within the accuracy of 0.1 parts per million.

And doctor Ward, being a physician, you know that a lot of when we read reports on blood chemicals or whatever it's parts per million. So this was really the time where that sort of measurement parts per million was established back in 1932, 33, at that point, when they discovered that the fluoride levels that were under one part per million in drinking water, brown stains didn't exist.

The town five miles away from bauxite. The town five miles away from the town in Idaho. Even towns further away from Colorado Springs. And then the research continued into 1990 1944, when the City Commission of Grand Rapids, Michigan, who spoke to the Public Health Service, they made a decision to allow the Michigan Department of Health to add fluoride to its public water supply.

The following year because when the fluoride was in the water, the tooth decay was lower. When the fluoride was not in the water, the tooth decay was rampant.

So it was really 1945, to answer your question directly, that Grand Rapids, Michigan became the first city in the world to Florida. Its drinking water and the Grand Rapids water fluoridation study was originally sponsored by the US Surgeon General, but eventually taken over by the National Institute of Dental Research.

After 1948, and over the next 15 years, researchers monitored the rate of tooth decay among Grand Rapids children, who now had beautiful, pearly white, smooth teeth.

And the decay rate, the caries rate we call decay caries in dentistry was so low it dropped by 60%. And that's huge, right? Yeah, right. That's huge. Revolutionized dental care.

I mean, the number one statement I have heard in my entire career is I hate going to the dentist. Right. And why? Because you're spending a lot of money for jewelry that you're never, ever going to look at, right? It's painful.

Yeah. You know, it's it's not a fun experience. And it. Yeah. Revolutionized dental care, making tooth decay, really for the first time in history, a preventable disease.

And fluoride today continued just continues to be. Dental science is main weapon in the battle against tooth decay. And just about every toothpaste on the market contains fluoride is an active ingredient.

Water in projects currently benefit over 200 million Americans and 13 million schoolchildren now participate. It's school based fluoride mouth rinse programs.

Yeah, I hope I answered your question. Yes, that's that's super interesting. It seems to me like, when I was working in the emergency rooms of these little out of the way places, we would frequently get people in who were, very much, in financial need.

They didn't have a lot of resources, and unfortunately, they didn't. They would have like some sort of, Medicaid, for, for medical care, but they wouldn't have anything to cover their dental care.

And so a lot of these patients would end up in the emergency room with an abscess tooth, and you couldn't really do much for them because they needed definitive dental care.

But it was just so, you know, it was hard to come by. And so I can't imagine that, you know, it would be the problem would be so much worse if you didn't have something to help prevent a lot of dental caries.

Well, population reality, if you really brushing your teeth super well every single day after each meal, right? You always get all of the bacteria that are all over our body off of your teeth.

But that's that's an impossible task, right? It's not something that people do, especially in areas like what you were referring to, where perhaps education or even instruction was given to young mothers with their young children.

Yeah, yeah. So how does the US approach on water fluoridation compared to other countries? Have there been like notable differences in dental health outcomes in countries that don't floor date their water?

So right now there's about 25 countries in the world that fluoridated water. And at the same time, there are countries who don't have fluoride in the water who did fluoridated one time and have stopped.

And for example, in Israel they stopped. They had they stopped. And now they are considering starting again, because the real issue is and again, this goes to the big question of should we flor date the water or not?

What kind of causation is related to disease when it comes out, you know, with fluoride in the water, what is the association? The real thing to think about there is the amount of decay versus protection of the teeth.

And in Europe, others suggest that 97 to 98% of the countries choose not to fluoridated drinking water. And quite frankly, even in my practice on the East Coast, when I was on the East Coast or in Colorado, if I had a guest who was visiting for some European country, and I looked at the amount of fillings they have had done in their life, the decay that they had presently fractures, whatever the issue was, I can tell you that people who come from areas of fluoridated water that's monitored properly, they do not have the same level of decay.

Right, right. And so what are the primary health? But, obviously less decay is one of the primary benefits of adding fluoride to the water. Does it have to be given at a certain time?

Is there a crucial period where that takes effect? So okay, so to you've asked sort of two questions there. Right. So first of all, the only real benefit of fluoride in the water, the true benefit of fluoride in the water is no decay.

As long as it's not super high, because then you have the risk of the down the of the surface, you have the brown staining going on. And again, I'm sure we'll get to some of the diseases that are being talked about as well if the fluoride levels get too high.

Yeah. In terms of the idea of, where the fluoride comes from when it comes through the bloodstream, it really incorporates into the developing matrix of the enamel.

So when, when a mother is pregnant, not only is the body being formed, but some of the primary teeth are being formed as well. And then when the baby is delivered, the primary teeth continue to get develop.

They erupt somewhere. There's a rule of seven starting at seven months. Every seven months, four more teeth will come in and by about two to really about two years old, you know, to 6 or 7 years old, a child will have all 20 of their baby teeth.

And then somewhere around eight and a half, nine, nine and a half, ten. Really, when adolescence starts to happen, that's when the baby teeth start to fall out as the permanent teeth are coming behind them, causing the reabsorption of the root of the baby tooth.

But those teeth are developing very early on in childhood. So in regard to your question about when is the most appropriate time to give it, it's in childhood, which will eventually bring us to the question of do you need it as an adult?

And the answer is no, not really. You don't. You don't need it. Yeah. All your teeth are formed because the enamel is already formed right. And so just to give people a little more idea of the it's so dilute, you know, so that the, the legal limit of fluoride in the water.

I think I read somewhere, you correct me if I'm wrong, but it was like 5 to 7 drops of fluoride in a 55 gallon tank of water. I mean, it's really, really dilute.

Correct. Again, it's that same number that they determined where it was point one part per million. Now, I've never done that math in my head of how many gallons of water and how many drops have to go in.

I'm not sure. But I know that during the time and certainly it's gotten better and better with with history since, you know, the 1950s, 60s, 70s, the metering, the titrating into our public water systems, that the computers are very precise in terms of what they're putting into the water.

Right. So what are some of the main health concerns? I mean, it sounds like all really good stuff from adding a little bit of fluoride to the water. What are some of the main health concerns raised by people who are against this?

Why would you be against this? Okay, so let's go back to sort of the Midwest of the United States, right. It was Michigan that first fluoridated, but it was Wisconsin where the fears about fluoride really began and likely exacerbated by the reputation of fluoride compounds, because fluoride compounds are also used for insect poisons, and by early literature, which tended to use terms such as toxic or low grade crime, fluoride poisoning.

That's where the misrepresentation went from what's actually being used in, an insecticide of sorts to what you're actually getting in your drinking water.

And then conspiracy claims started. Conspiracy theories. They exist still today. They're even today an article about with the incoming gubernatorial changes that are about to happen, with taking over of who is heading up the NIH.

I'm not going to get into political conversation, but the idea of, is it time to take the fluoride out of the water? And a lot of this is all based upon conspiracy theories, which is actually kind of interesting where it came from, because it was really motivated, dating back to when the US atomic bomb was being, created and litigation against the atomic bomb.

And then a movie, Doctor Strangelove. I don't know if you've ever seen that. Where a deranged US Air Force general claimed that it would, quote, sap and purify all of our precious bodily fluids.

And so, again, he made that claim about fluoride. Yes. And that's okay. Okay. Both in this with the New World Order plot to take over the world, it was suggested that a German chemical company created the whole fluoride situation to make people submissive to that power, who was right around just after World War Two and behind the scenes, it was promoted by the sugary food companies, and phosphate fertilizer or aluminum industries.

And even maybe it was a smokescreen to cover the failure to provide dental care to the poor. It's just not that complicated. But it does bring up the concern, as do adults need fluoride in the water.

And the answer to that question is no, they don't, as it only plays a role in the development of the enamel of our teeth. And when that is gone, gone.

Meaning you get a cavity and it's either fallen away, broken away, or drilled away, it's gone. Your enamel is not going to grow. There's some research to say that if there's a little calcification and you put full right on it, that it's going to help.

But after 38 years of dentistry, baby, if you've got a cavity, it's eventually going to be a cavity, right? So to specifically answer your question, yes, chronic fluoride exposure can cause what I mentioned before skeletal fluorosis.

You're familiar with that term meaning that too much fluoride can make the bones weak, or maybe even cause them to be deformed. And having practiced for close to 30 years, I was in the Washington, DC area and Northern Virginia fluoridated water, and in Colorado fluoridated water.

I have never had any patients with that condition. And the question in my mind is, did these patients or any patients documented getting dental fluorosis from normally fluoridated water properly titrated, normally fluoridated water.

And I can't find a single case. Yes. Okay. In the parts of the country where the fluoride levels are super, super high, Colorado Springs, anywhere you saw that Colorado brown stain Idaho bauxite, right.

This is the parts of the country where natural fluoride really is too high a dose. So what is typically not the normal state of what is fluoridated water, but an overexposure?

Yes. You're seeing some of these diseases, diseases like thyroid issues. Right. You're seeing issues with other issues with the body. And this is really where the the people who are creating the controversies are suggesting any fluoride coming to us whatsoever.

Right? This is going to cause something major cause a cancer. Are cause a thyroid issue. And again, you've read lots of medical studies in your life and there's not a linear effect, a linear type of causation and effect relationship between the high levels of fluoride and the thyroid at all.

Right. So you can't say it's just the fluoride. But again, just like drinking one cup of coffee to maybe pick you up in the morning a little bit and get a little warmth in your belly, if you drink ten cups of coffee, there's a good chance at all that caffeine is going to make you all wired.

Again, if you take 1.1 part per million, in the fluoride as you drink, the water is compared to go to a place like where Colorado brown stain was seen all over parts of the United States and parts of the world. Yes.

Overexposure is going to cause issues. And in those communities, my belief is the education needs to be and I hope at least in the United States, if in places like Colorado Springs, they are taking the fluoride out of the water and bringing it down to a normal level and telling people, don't drink water out of your well, but still will.

Just so they don't have the same issue. Got it. So how do we ensure that fluoride levels are at a safe level, where we are and, are there variations in, fluoride exposure based on, like, individual consumption or geographic?

I know we talked a little bit about geographic locations. Certain areas of the country are higher naturally in fluoride. Right. So take taking the first question first.

You know, how do we ensure fluoride levels in public water systems remain within safe limits? And again, I appreciate all of the work that you do with your patients where you suggest that they get water reports from their local water company.

People should be informed. People need to do their research in terms of what is in my drinking water, and the fluoride might be great, but what if the other toxins are in there?

Right? Should I be drinking water out of my faucet? Or should I be drinking water out of a bottle? Okay. So moving that forward to your second question, how are the variations in fluoride exposure based on individual consumption?

And geographic? Yes, that's the biggest issue. As I mentioned before. Again, if you've checked the water and you know the amount of water and you are aware that there is a super high level of fluoride in the water, or if you've not looked at all and you're just drinking water out of the tap indiscriminately in an area where you don't know, you are in danger of overexposure.

Without a doubt. Yeah. And by the way, I'm going to put a link to, a website that you can go to. It's on the Environmental Working group, and you can enter in your zip code, and it will give you a full report of what your city water looks like or wherever you're getting your water from, you know, and.

Yeah. And, and the other thing about that is how often is the water treatment plan in your area testing their water. Right. You know, there's a report from 1988 or is they every six months, right.

Yeah. Yeah, they should be up to date. Yeah. So we'll we'll definitely get that up. Do you notice that there are, are there are certain populations that are more vulnerable to effects of fluoride, like kids, infants or people with chronic kidney, kidney disease?

And should there be different guidelines for these groups? Okay. So specific to renal disease, at least in any report that I have ever researched, there is no evidence that fluoride in properly titrated fluoridated water poses any risk to children with renal disease at all.

Yeah, it has to be at the recommended dose for water fluoridation. Again, if it's higher, it's a different story. But there is limited research on the impact of fluoride on chronic kidney disease.

And so I think more clinical studies I don't know how people in the world, have chronic kidney disease and are submitting themselves for study in terms of the fluoride, hopefully not that many, but the long and short is I.

The research is limited at this point for the impact of fluoride on chronic kidney diseases. Okay. In terms of the idea of the difference between infants, children or anybody else is for an infant, if there was no fluoride in the water whatsoever, and you knew that from your reports or if you made a decision, I am not going to drink the water, even if it is fluoridated in my mind.

Know that if you don't want your infant who is going to turn into a young child and then a teenager, and then an adult, right? You don't want them to get decay.

There are prescriptions that can be written. As a matter of fact, my own children, we where we were living in Northern Virginia, we found out that the water did not have any fluoride in it whatsoever.

I don't know what other toxins it had in it, but it didn't have any fluoride. And so I actually wrote the prescription for our own children. And the dosing is for an infant six months to three year, three years, point to five milligrams per day.

Now that's not measured in parts per million, but the child could be drinking a ton of water or not so much water. But if nothing has any fluoride point 25mg per day, whereas from 3 to 6 years old, 0.5mg per day and then anyone older than six years old, one milligram per day.

And because the teeth really stopped forming. And if we don't worry about wisdom teeth, if we just say because we many of us had our wisdom teeth taken out when we were kids, who cares about wisdom?

Teeth will take them out whether they get decay, come in sideways, do whatever. We're just going to sacrifice them. Let them go. Really, you don't need to for a date or take a prescription for fluoride after about 13 years old.

Because by 13 years old, all the teeth permanent teeth erupted. Or they're just under the skin, just under the gum tissue about to erupt. And so if a parent really wanted to be super careful, they could avoid their giving their children water from the tap at all.

But it's really important that the physicians, obstetricians and gynecologists know that this family is not going to let their kid drink any water. And aside from just practicing well care to these babies and young children, and that sort of thing, educating the family, saying, hey, if you don't want your kids to get any cavities.

And by the way, you do have to brush and floss. It's not magic. But if you don't, if you want to give them the best fighting chance, let us write you a prescription for the appropriate amount of fluoride.

And at that point, assuming that people are actually seeing physicians, that all women are probably seeing obstetricians, but who knows in some areas of the country they're not seeing pediatricians.

It is truly the idea that the parent can't forget to give their kid the prescription. Right? So it's it's a really huge ask for maybe the first 13 years of a kid's life to say, drink no water from the tap at all.

Yeah. Buying all that water, getting prescriptions for all that time and really without areas of let's just assume for a second that there's no areas of the country where there's true ignorance, like people don't know that they don't know, and they there is no medical care, which we know there isn't, or there's inaccessibility to medical care.

Let's make believe none of that existed. 13 years of no water from the tap is really costly at the supermarket. Yeah, well, I was going to ask about, the water filtration systems and, does things like reverse osmosis, get rid of the fluoride, charcoal fillers like, do you know if that's, something that happens?

And again, it depends upon the degree of the reverse osmosis filter that you're going to get in your house. Yeah. From getting something very inexpensive to something that is, you know, wonderfully or highly expensive.

And is your whole house fluoridated or just this one little faucet and it's getting their water out of that one faucet, and that's the only thing they drink.

You know, that that is, again, all of it is something that when I think about ease of access, it's very complicated and also costly to get a reverse osmosis system in your home. Yes.

And the government wanted to pay for reverse osmosis filters in everybody's home. Again, to what degree is it the responsibility of the government to purify everybody's water so pure that there's no chemicals whatsoever?

No toxins whatsoever? This is a whole different subject. Yeah, yeah. Well, one of the criticisms of water fluoridation is the lack of informed consent as this is applied to an entire population.

So how do you view this ethical argument? And should there be more of a public discourse or even voting on the issue? So there have been millions and millions and millions of people who have never had any kind of health issues except that they've had less dental decay and less time, effort and energy and money spent on dental care, which is fantastic for the patient.

The United States government, as well as many other countries, feel that the benefits outweigh the risks in terms of informed consent. If I knew that nothing was going to happen to me, would I really want to give permission to my government to do something to protect me?

I don't know, and if we stopped, right, if enough voting or, criticism of water fluoridation comes around, or the idea of let's vote it out, right? Maybe with this next government change, we have just voted it out.

The greatest thing that would happen is the benefit goes to people like me, the dentist, because the patients are going to get more decay, which means we'll make more money.

I don't mean to be callous about this, but again, decay will just rise. So in terms of informed consent, I think people need to be notified of something.

There's other things that the government do for us. I don't really know that I've given informed consent for police departments or fire departments or this sort of thing, because I'm there to protect them, which takes us to the whole other side of things.

Where do the conspiracies come from? Right. So has there been, an evolving scientific understanding of fluoride effects on the body, over time? Like, are there recent studies finding that have shifted the perspective on fluoridation either one way or another?

Well, the short answer is no, except to the degree of benefiting against tooth decay. And even today, putting fluoride in the water at the proper amount is hailed by the Center of Disease Control and Prevention as one of 20th century's greatest public health interventions.

At the same time, yes, it is very well documented that overexposure to fluoride is harmful. And I don't mean drinking six glasses of water as compared to three in a day.

I mean, high fluoride levels. Is the regulation of the addition of the fluoride to the water that protects us from overexposure. And now, politically speaking, if you have no faith in scientists and doubting government agencies, and I think about the countries, as I mentioned before, that you know, at one point points, one point put fluoride in water and then through strong opinions or votes, kind of took it out of the water.

And now they're thinking about putting it back in. But then really looking back over a hundred years it tells me that the benefit outweighs the risk. I don't believe there's any conspiracy or a motive of any government or government agency to purposely poison its people to cause cancers or bone issues or neurological issues.

I don't believe it. Right. I just don't see like this massive conspiracy of local governments or foreign governments trying to poison us through this fluoride.

I don't see it. Yeah. And all of those have so many other underlying causes cancers, bone issues, neurological issues that at the same time, the governments are not purposely restricting dentists making money because they're protecting their citizens.

Right? Darren, I'm sure would like to make three times as much as I ever made on every filling I did. Most people think dental care is too expensive anyway, so the long and short is, you know, where people don't have any other major diseases and they don't really need anything more than a periodic cleaning because the fluoride is protected, their teeth sort of a beautiful situation.

Yeah, yeah. That's great. So definitely, in your opinion, the benefits far outweigh the risks, without a doubt. With food for water fluoridation. Yeah.

Sounds like sounds like if you keep it at, you know, the 0.1 part per million or less that, that that's protective. But there's the sweet spot. You know, too much.

Obviously you're going to have problems too little. You have problems. So there's, there's a, a nice middle ground there. Yep. So yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time and your expertise on this subject.

It's been super interesting. Of course, you know, and I'll just say this to add on to it, okay. Yeah. Knowing that it's really meant for the child but not for the adults.

There's no studies that I've seen that pinpoint a later disease in life solely on properly dosed fluoride. So in my opinion, no harm, no foul. Even if the adult drinks fluoridated water till they're 100 years old.

I don't know any human being who has been perfectly pure in their lifestyle, such that a later disease could be completely traced to a properly dosed fluoride in the water they drank.

Yeah. Grilled their food over charcoal. Is a cancerous smoke that's coming up from the charcoal. If they had fluoridated water at the same time and they got cancer, are we going to blame it on the fluoride? Are we going to blame it on the charcoal?

Or maybe they smoke cigarets too, right? It's really only when the fluoride levels are super, super high, which again, if you spend the time to research where these diseases mainly around areas around the areas where the natural fluoride is super high.

And in the long run, if policymakers decide whether they want to Florida the public water or not, if they choose not to, I would really hope that the government people get in front of the physicians, the obstetricians and the pediatricians.

They gotta educate everybody. The government needs to educate. Yeah. Case scenario do some prescription fluoride for a couple of years. Stop at 13 years old if you don't care about the wisdom teeth.

If you do care about the wisdom teeth, keep it up till 17 or 18 years old. That's the teeth are permanently developed. Yeah. You know, if they do decide to flora date, especially with all the refined machinery of the polluters that exist to make sure every homeowner, every resident of the community really checks to see what is the fluoride level in the water around them.

Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. Well, thank you again for all this really wonderful, interesting discussion on fluoride in water. My pleasure, my pleasure.

And thank you for inviting me. It's always great to have a conversation with you. Yeah, it's so much fun. You're just a wealth of information on so many topics.

But I knew that that one was, one that I definitely wanted to hit on because, it has been in the news recently, but it seems like it's always been a controversial subject.

And yeah, I remember hearing about this, even back in the 90s, you know, it was an issue in San Diego. And there was always this controversy about, should we flor date the water or not?

And, Yeah. So. Yep. All right. Well thanks again. Thank you. Always great to talk to you. You too. Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of your day. You, too. Bye.

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Fluoride Explained: Benefits, Risks, and Everything You Need to Know with Dr. Jeremy Lowell

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