IF YOU’D LIVED in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1945, you’d have been one of the first people in America to sip fluoridated tap water. As of 2024, about 73 percent of us get the mineral in our water supply. And for almost 80 years, there’s been nonstop drama around that addition. In 1956, Clive McCay, a researcher at Cornell University, wrote that water fluoridation “is being considered as a panacea by one party and a poison by another.” Yes, it is. Last year, TikTok posts described the mineral as “toxic.” On X, Health and Human Services secretary appointee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., called it an “industrial waste” associated with numerous diseases. Dentists and many public health advocates say it’s very important for your health.
The controversies haven’t always been just about concerns for your teeth and body. Some people object to the government putting anything in the water. “There is something about water and the necessity of it for our lives that makes people particularly protective of the water supply,” explains Catherine Carstairs, PhD, a professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, who has researched the history of fluoride. “Also, there’s a concern that it simply isn’t natural to put fluoride in the water, even though, ironically, the benefits of fluoride were discovered because it naturally occurs in many water supplies.” So what exactly is it, and what does it have to do with our health?
Original article online at: https://www.menshealth.com/health/a63118861/is-fluoride-bad-for-you/