"I’ll take a burger and fries, hold the fluoride.” Fluoride?

Serious scientists, who look, find fluoride in the darnedest places. Researchers from the University of Indiana School of Dentistry report in the scientific journal “Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology” that McDonald’s French fries deliver more than guilty pleasure.

Your teeth bite into 0.13 milligrams fluoride along with that small portion of McDonald’s fries that goes upward to 0.38 mg in the supersize.

So why do we need to know that?

Because of fluoridation, where water engineers purposely add fluoride to water supplies to reduce tooth decay, and the billion dollar fluoride products industry, many Americans are fluoride over-dosed. As a result, almost half of US children sport dental fluorosis, white-spotted, yellow or brown permanently stained teeth. This unanticipated fluoride side effect created a lucrative new market for dentists who can get thousands of dollars to cover or fix fluorosed teeth.

This study shows children risk fluorosis from their daily diet even when their water supplies are not fluoridated.

Unsightly fluorosis is expensive to cover up. In fact, Americans spend more to cover-up fluorosis than they would save filling cavities if fluoridation reduced tooth decay. Too much ingested fluoride also damages bones, without any overt outward signs. So we must use children’s teeth as the “canary” that warns the population of danger.

Unfortunately, most dentists don’t keep current on fluoride research and encourage fluoride in more and varied ways while researchers warnings to prescribe less remain buried in the medical literature.

At age three to five, permanent front teeth form under the gums. So fluoride ingestion has to be especially monitored during this time. To avoid fluorosis the National Academy of Science advises the following daily fluoride intake from all sources (food, air, water, medicines, and supplements):

· infants up to 6 months old - less than 0.01 mg
· babies from 6 - 12 months less than 0.5 mg
· children from 1 to 3 years old - 0.7 mg
· children from 4 to 8 years old - less than 1 mg

The above-mentioned study shows small children often exceed these dosages from food alone.

Two slices of “Iron Kids Bread” dose your kids teeth with about 0.08 milligrams fluoride. While two slices of “Aunt Millie’s Homestyle Buttermilk White Bread” releases only .03 mg. Five and one half ounces of Lay’s baked potato chips confers 0.20 mg fluoride, while, the same amount of Ruffles delivers .11 fluoride

Many other studies reveal hidden fluoride in jarred baby chicken food, chicken sticks and luncheon meat. Forty two percent of juices contain more fluoride than recommended for small children. And 71% of sodas contain more than .6 ppm fluoride (0.6 milligrams per liter or quart).

Ironically, while the fluoride in soda contributes to dental fluorosis, fluoride can’t help teeth eroded by soda.

It seems too many dentists snoozed through nutrition and fluoride classes.

Instead of discouraging soda consumption, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) has entered into a partnership with Coca Cola. Charging the “AAPD has made a deal with the devil,” the Center For Science in the Public Interest calls soda “liquid candy,” and urges the “AAPD, for the sake of children's health and the organization's own credibility, not to consummate any financial relationship with Coca-Cola or other junk-food marketer.”

Find out how much fluoride is in the foods you and children consume each day: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/Fluoride/Fluoride.html

Other sources of fluoride to consider are from toothpaste, dental treatments, dentists filling material, sealants and varnish. Fluoride is naturally in tea and ocean fish, is inhaled from coal burning buildings (some New York City schools are coal-burning facilities), ocean mist and humidifiers using fluoridated water. Fluoride is in some medicines, is an industrial air pollutant and is a component of many pesticide residues that remain on fruits and vegetables.

With Fluoride, less is best none is better.