Did you ever wonder if certain foods have a direct effect on your health?

Well, I'm here to solve that mystery since you are the foods you eat.

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast. I'm your host Dr. Michael Greger. In this series we look

at the history, benefits, and safety of water fluoridation. And we start by looking

at the efficacy of adding fluoride to the water supply.

A meta-analysis of all the studies on the dental health implications of vegetarian diets

showed significantly fewer decayed teeth, missing teeth, and the number of teeth with fillings. One of the studies that bucked the trend and showed that vegetarians had more cavities blamed the excess decay and the fact that vegetarians were significantly less likely to choose fluoride containing toothpaste, supported by the fact that those who did use toothpaste with fluoride had significantly were decayed teeth than those who didn't.

Floyd is thought to protect teeth by improving the intrinsic

stability of the mineral structural dental enamel.

A recent meta analysis for nearly a hundred randomized controlled trials of fluoride toothpaste involving more than 10,000 people found high certainty evidence that toothpaste containing the typical amount of fluoride reduces toothpaste in both children and adults.

But what about the addition of fluoride to the water supply?

A medical consensus of public health authorities around the world has considered

water fluorination at appropriate levels as a safe and effective means to prevent cavities

on a community-wide scale.

In fact, the CDC, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention,

deemed fluoridation of drinking water as one of the top 10 public health achievements

of the 20th century.

However, community water fluoridation has long been a flashpoint of polemic

and polarization. Anti-fluidation activists underscore that there's no human dietary requirement

for fluoride and argue that water fluoridation isn't effective enough to justify the costs, which may include health risks.

First, some background before I dive into the controversy.

Florid is a mineral element from the earth's crust that naturally occurs in most water supplies.

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