Tooth decay — and the fluoride problem
Fluorine is the atomic element; fluoride is the negatively charged ion; and Acidum fluoricum is the homeopathic remedy.
The most widespread “disease of civilisation” is dental caries — the gradual breakdown of teeth. Bacteria in the mouth turn dietary sugar, which clings to tooth surfaces, into acids. Too little chewing, reduced saliva flow, and sticky sweets encourage plaque to build up on enamel. The main building material of enamel, apatite (calcium phosphate), is vulnerable to acid and, despite its hardness, slowly yields in specific spots. Much more stable and acid-resistant is calcium bound to fluoride — though the text argues this is not something “natural” for the human body. This tighter, less soluble bond may look beneficial on the surface of the tooth enamel, but elsewhere in the body it is not. After all, we have around 300 times more bone mass (made largely of calcium phosphate), and bone takes up fluoride about 30 times more readily than teeth do. And yet the aim is supposedly only to give the tooth surface more “hardness” and protection against decay. Bone functions as the body’s depot for calcium and phosphates. For these to be released when needed, it matters that the compound can be dissolved more easily — something that, according to the text, does not apply to calcium fluoride. Fluorine belongs to the halogens, the salt-formers, and as fluoride — with its strongly electronegative charge — it binds the electropositive calcium more intensely than phosphate does. The consequence, the text suggests, is a loss of the bone’s flexibility: bones and teeth become more brittle. From this alone, the author concludes, you can see the absurdity of giving our children fluoride tablets on a regular basis.
There is, the text states, no biological need for fluorine in humans at all.
Fluorine is neither a trace element (as is often claimed in public) nor is tooth decay a fluoride-deficiency disease.
From youth into old age, the build-up of fluoride from the environment increases steadily and involuntarily in our bones, because intake through food is unavoidable. Today, it is increasingly synthetic fluoride compounds from industrial chemistry that come into play — and the text argues these are associated with greater toxicity and risk. In the past, it was natural fluoride from volcanic water sources. Fluoride, the author suggests, makes bone harder, but also more brittle and prone to breaking. That is a problem in later life — but, in the author’s view, it should certainly never become an issue in adolescence or childhood.
If a breastfeeding mother increases her fluoride intake, her breast milk will still remain a low-fluoride food. Nature, it says, has arranged things so that a breastfed infant is effectively protected from fluoride. And yet, for decades — and, according to the text, even today — medical practice in industrialised countries has prescribed fluoride to infants from the second week of life (combined with vitamin D) in tablet form, bypassing breastfeeding altogether. Because many parents grow tired of keeping up with the routine and stop supplementation after the first or second year of life, advocates of this “caries prevention” approach shifted towards fluoridated iodised table salt — and in some places towards the highly questionable artificial fluoridation of tap water.
Dentists promote the use of fluoride in toothpastes, mouthwashes and varnishes that are brushed onto tooth surfaces. Interestingly, the text notes, dentists have recently (since 2000) begun to reject fluoride supplements for infants again, after new findings highlighted disadvantages of administering it so early. Paediatricians in Germany, however,
continue to prescribe it.
For humans, the line between “normal exposure” and toxicity with fluoride is reached quickly, the text argues — beginning at 2 mg per day. And because fluoride comes in from two directions — on the one hand through biological sources, and on the other increasingly and often invisibly through its wider spread in our environment — we’ve lost any clear sense of the total amount each individual is taking in.
Natural sources of fluoride include: drinking water, seawater, marine animals, food, and tea plants.
On top of that come synthetic fluorides, for example through fortification of drinking water: in Germany, the text says, you have to reckon with 0.3 to 1 mg of fluoride per litre. Then there is the environmental burden of fluoride from aluminium smelters, steel production, enamelling work, and phosphate or fertiliser manufacturing. Fluorides also appear in conventional medicines — and, according to the text, especially in allergy treatments. Meanwhile, the food industry keeps inventing more products with added fluoride-rich gelatine, from yoghurt to “Soft” sweets like gummy bears.
Damage, the text argues, can occur when a total fluoride intake of 2 mg per day is taken regularly — in the form of dental fluorosis: white spots appear on the teeth, then brown discolouration and decay-like defects, cracks and chipping. In other words, what is meant to prevent caries can, in overdoses, be triggered again in a similar way through increased brittleness of the tooth.
From around 5 mg of fluoride a day, the text claims the thyroid can be inhibited. It also describes effects on connective tissue: with their strongly electronegative pull, fluorides don’t only bind calcium ions, but also silicates. Silicon fluorides, it says, cannot fulfil the biological role of silicates because they are insoluble. As a result, the elasticity of organ membranes, ligaments and joints decreases. Over time, collagen is chronically damaged in its structure. The vitreous body of the eye contains silicates — and the text suggests fluorides may be involved in the dramatic rise in lens clouding (cataracts).
Silicates, the text continues, effectively hinder aluminium absorption in humans. This “modern metal” (vaccinations) accumulates and, as ionised aluminium, damages nerve tissue and immune cells. Fluoride, it argues, promotes this unfavourable aluminium build-up! Aluminium forms a small molecule with fluoride that can cross biological membranes with ease and penetrate the nervous system unhindered.
Finally, the text states that fluorides block or inhibit enzymes and, in doing so, impair blood formation, the cardiovascular system, the kidneys, and the thyroid.
Fluoride, the text suggests, can stimulate a form of collagen-related protein synthesis that may lead to bony swellings and changes in the structural framework of teeth. Proteins altered under the influence of fluoride are also described as more likely to disrupt normal immune functioning — creating a breeding ground, in the author’s view, for autoimmune conditions and allergies.
In children, fluoride taken orally may form poorly soluble salts in the gut, which can trigger digestive upsets. If a child is struggling with unexplained stomach complaints, the text argues, this possibility should be kept in mind. And for people with dental amalgam fillings, there is another concern raised here: fluoride may accelerate corrosion of the amalgam and increase the release of mercury.
From a purely toxicological perspective, the text argues, we can summarise what fluorides do:
Loss of elasticity; fibrosis of organs (an increased “scaffolding” of connective tissue)
Enzyme inhibition; damage to teeth and bones; immune disruption; hardening processes; premature ageing; promotion of aluminium uptake; increased corrosion of dental amalgams.
The homeopathic “remedy picture” is said to mirror this kind of hardening on a psychological level — with the same loss of elasticity showing up as reduced flexibility, lower tolerance for frustration, and less willingness to yield.
And, the author concludes, even more serious are the tendencies described in the fluoride remedy picture: a growing superficiality,
aggressiveness, difficulties with connection and contact, and a disposition towards addiction — all of which, the text claims, are encouraged by fluoride in our children.
A sense of the wider, whole-person effects that might be expected is offered, the text suggests, by homeopathy — through its remedy provings of Acidum fluoricum and various fluoride salts.
Acidum fluoricum (hydrofluoric acid) AMB
Calcium fluoricum (calcium fluoride) AMB
Source: Dr. Graf, Buch: Kritik der Arneiroutine
Amazon: https://www.amazon.de/Kritik-Arzneiroutine-bei-Schwangeren-Kleinkindern/dp/3934048056/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397210686&sr=1-3&keywords=dr+graf+hom%C3%B6opathie
