Thyroid/Fluoride

Thirty-seven cities and communities officially ended their water fluoridation programs in 2011 (according to the Fluoride Action Network), that’s 2,837,500 people who voted against fluoride being sent through their pipes and hoses in just the US and Canada. New Zealand adds another 55,000 to the number.

How much of this fluoride gets into people’s mouths? The vast majority of it goes into the ground — we put it on our lawns and veggie gardens and water our fig trees and wash our cars with it. And we flush tons of it down the sewer drains so it contaminates ground water. Groundwater contamination with fluoride is a big contributor to bone loss.

If you look into the research done over the past decades about the benefits of fluoride to your teeth you won’t find much good news. Plenty of people like to say it helps, but the research just doesn’t support that belief. Instead it tells of poisonings and mottled teeth, of thyroid problems and decreasing bone density. If you really want to scare yourself, Google “fluoride side effects.”

To see what little good fluoride does for you teeth, read this research review. Warning, it is not pleasant. It compares the amount of dental problems in countries with and without fluoride added to the water, and it compares dental problems before and after stopping fluoride treatments. It tells you that fluoride does nothing to stop cavities in pits and fissures — the places where most cavities occur. And then it tells you that the largest study ever done in the United States, the one that was supposed to support fluoridation, found no difference between fluoridated and non-fluoridated children’s teeth.

What does this have to do with my thyroid?

There is an entire class of stuff called “goitrogens” that harm the thyroid glands or change the hormones they produce. Goitrogens come from many sources, but the most common one affecting most Americans is fluoride.
Yep, that stuff that is put into your drinking water, many juices on the market, packed into toothpaste tubes, and smeared onto your teeth every time you see a dentist.

If you are having thyroid problems of any kind, you should get far away from any fluoride — and it is sneaky stuff!

Hunt down the fluoride in your life — bottled water from a city has it even if it’s not on the label. Soft drinks have it because they use city water. Check your toothpaste and use baking soda or powdered clay until you can find something else you like. Refuse fluoride treatments at your dentist and tell them if you have thyroid problems. And while you’re at it, demand a thyroid collar to protect you during X-rays. Don’t use mouth wash that has fluoride in it.

If you’re interested in further research — there are many different lists of goitrogens out there and they’re all different. They argue about what affects what. But the research on fluoride is well established. The other major class of them is the coles — broccoli, collards, cabbage, those sort of foods. Unfortunately, there isn’t solid research telling us which one is worse or what to do about it. That’s why it is crucial to eat a varied diet. If you eat collards every day you can affect your thyroid levels. Same for cabbage or broccoli or vitamin pills that are made from real foods.

How do you balance eating dark green veggies with  a healthy thyroid?

You rotate your greens. Don’t eat collards every day for your entire life. Rotate them with kale or broccoli and other dark green veggies. Add seaweed to your diet — both the purple and the green kind. Marinate your coles to help you digest them. And eat more vegetables.