Fluoride
pleasedtoeatyou had been getting stomach aches in the morning, and for a while we were both stumped -- subtracting regularly consumed foods from her diet didn't seem to yield consistent results. Then last week she suggested it might be her toothpaste; lo and behold, when I plugged in "gastric+fluoride" into Gscholar I came up with two decades' worth of papers, of which this is a fairly representative example. She's since stopped using toothpaste with NaF and the morning stomach aches have receded.
Turns out sodium fluoride damages your stomach lining, which I suppose I should have considered sooner based on the fact that fluorine is the only atom in the periodic table more electron-hungry than oxygen. I mean, you can use NaF to clean metal and kill rats for fuck's sake. Unfortunately, having been told all your life that something is a Good Thing has a powerful hypnotic effect. Skimming this has made for some interesting food for thought, and once again left me astounded at how eager the people who define public health have been over the past century to shove stuff down people without bothering to explore all the angles.
This got me thinking: there's a sound evidence-based case that fluoridated toothpaste reduces incidence of cavities, but all of those studies were done in populations with fairly typical (that is to say, excessive) intake of sugars and starches. I mean, it's not like the stuff is available to hunter-gatherers -- who, if you believe Weston Price, don't get cavities in spite of having considerable plaque but then get all sorts of modern dental problems if they switch to diets high in refined carbs. So I wonder how valuable it actually is to someone who's not giving their mouth bacteria a regular feast and is brushing and flossing after meals in any case.
It's something of an open secret among dentists that, fluoride aside, toothpaste serves essentially two purposes: to make the brushing experience more pleasant and as a breath freshener. The actual mechanical motion of the brush is what does the cleaning, and brushing with toothpaste doesn't have a significantly different effect on the surface of your teeth than brushing with plain water. Of course if you consider aesthetic issues like staining from tea and wine, both of which I like, a little baking soda apparently does the trick just fine, with the caveat that anything that whitens your teeth wears down your enamel so it's best not used often.
So, my instinct is to go commando here and just see what happens, but that leaves me with one problem: adding that on top of the acetone breath I tend to get (think nail polish remover) would seem like cruel and unusual punishment for anyone who happens to get within breathing distance of me. I suppose I'll just have to chew some parsley after meals and keep some sugarless gum on hand at all times.
Bonus evidence-based dentistry: Getting your teeth regularly cleaned hasn't been shown to actually do anything.
Turns out sodium fluoride damages your stomach lining, which I suppose I should have considered sooner based on the fact that fluorine is the only atom in the periodic table more electron-hungry than oxygen. I mean, you can use NaF to clean metal and kill rats for fuck's sake. Unfortunately, having been told all your life that something is a Good Thing has a powerful hypnotic effect. Skimming this has made for some interesting food for thought, and once again left me astounded at how eager the people who define public health have been over the past century to shove stuff down people without bothering to explore all the angles.
This got me thinking: there's a sound evidence-based case that fluoridated toothpaste reduces incidence of cavities, but all of those studies were done in populations with fairly typical (that is to say, excessive) intake of sugars and starches. I mean, it's not like the stuff is available to hunter-gatherers -- who, if you believe Weston Price, don't get cavities in spite of having considerable plaque but then get all sorts of modern dental problems if they switch to diets high in refined carbs. So I wonder how valuable it actually is to someone who's not giving their mouth bacteria a regular feast and is brushing and flossing after meals in any case.
It's something of an open secret among dentists that, fluoride aside, toothpaste serves essentially two purposes: to make the brushing experience more pleasant and as a breath freshener. The actual mechanical motion of the brush is what does the cleaning, and brushing with toothpaste doesn't have a significantly different effect on the surface of your teeth than brushing with plain water. Of course if you consider aesthetic issues like staining from tea and wine, both of which I like, a little baking soda apparently does the trick just fine, with the caveat that anything that whitens your teeth wears down your enamel so it's best not used often.
So, my instinct is to go commando here and just see what happens, but that leaves me with one problem: adding that on top of the acetone breath I tend to get (think nail polish remover) would seem like cruel and unusual punishment for anyone who happens to get within breathing distance of me. I suppose I'll just have to chew some parsley after meals and keep some sugarless gum on hand at all times.
Bonus evidence-based dentistry: Getting your teeth regularly cleaned hasn't been shown to actually do anything.