Can Curcumin Protect Your Brain From Fluoridation?

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The fluoridation of public water has been a topic of controversy for many years in the United States. This practice began in the 1960s as a way to improve public health. Many people however aren’t convinced by the arguments for it and have sought ways to protect themselves from what they perceive to be a harmful chemical additive. They may have an answer in the form of curcumin, a compound commonly found in turmeric.

In this article you’ll learn what fluoridation is, the arguments for and against it, and how curcumin might hold the key to escaping the effects of fluoride.

A Brief Background on Fluoride and Fluoridation

In order to understand what all the fuss is about, it is necessary to give a quick synopsis of fluoride and it’s uses here. Fluoride is an ionic compound related to fluorine, one of the periodic elements. Fluorine is very common and is found naturally in many different kinds of rocks. “So…what’s it doing in your tap water?” you might be wondering.

The United States government began adding fluoride to municipal water in 1961 as a public health measure. When fluoridated water is consumed, the fluoride is believed to bind to the outermost layer of the tooth enamel, which increases its’ strength and helps to protect it from decay. Up until very recently, the levels the government deemed safe for consumption varied from 0.7 milligrams and 1.7 milligrams per liter of water. In 2015, the upper limit was lowered to 0.7 milligrams, since so many toothpastes contain fluoride nowadays that higher levels were considered excessive (more on that later).

Basically, the government puts fluoride in the public’s water to protect their teeth. Sounds great, right?

The problem is a lot of people believe that fluoridation can negatively affect human health. It is a fact that fluoride is toxic in very high doses. Critics argue that fluoride can accumulate in the body, and specifically the brain, so why take the risk?

There is also the ethical issue of fluoridation. Opponents of fluoridation argue that it is basically a method of medicating massive quantities of people without their consent. It is also difficult to control how much fluoride you are exposed to, since different people use different amounts of water.

What are the health risks of fluoridation?

As mentioned above, fluoride in high doses is toxic. There is a reason the US government adopted the safe upper limit and most countries chose not to fluoridate their water at all. There have been studies which suggest that fluoride exposure can contribute to lower IQ scores and neurological damage. There is also evidence that fluoride can accumulate around the pineal gland in the brain, essentially “calcifying” all around it (of course, fluoride and calcium aren’t the same thing but you get the idea). Some articles suggest it can contribute to Alzheimer’s disease although this has not been proven.

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So what is the solution for people who want to reduce the potential health risks of fluoride exposure?

A study conducted at M.L. Sudhaika University in India suggests that curcumin, a compound found in the popular spice turmeric, can help counteract the negative effects of fluoride.

As written above, there is some belief both within and outside the scientific community that fluoride has neurotoxic and neurodegenerative properties. In order to test this hypothesis, as well as whether curcumin had any effect on it, researchers conducted a 30-day experiment using mice divided into 4 groups:

The first group of mice received fluoridated drinking water. The second received the same water with curcumin (30 milligrams/kilogram of bodyweight) dissolved in olive oil added in. The third group received the same amount of curcumin and no fluoride. The last group was a control group who received non-fluoridated water and no curcumin.

The researchers wanted to determine how each ratio of supplementation, or lack thereof, affected the malondialdehyde (MDA) levels in the brain. MDA is a compound related to oxidative stress in the brain, so by tracking it, researchers can determine how the fluoride and curcumin were related to neurological damage.

The study found that the mice which received fluoride water had the highest levels of MDA after 30 days. The groups receiving fluoride + curcumin, and non-fluoridated water + curcumin had better results. The curcumin + non fluoridated water group had significantly lower MDA levels than the other 3 groups. This led the researchers to conclude that curcumin is useful in counteracting the neurodegenerative effects of fluoride.

Now obviously this was a study done on mice, but this is good news for humans concerned about fluoridation as well. The takeaway here is that adding more turmeric to your diet can be a significant step in protecting yourself from the neurodegenerative effects of fluoride.

Detoxing from fluoride is a whole different topic*, but you may want to look into this as well.

References:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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