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Fluoride avoidance reduced anemia in pregnant women, and decreased preterm births, according to a new study.

Anemia in pregnancy can lead to maternal and infant mortality; it continues to be a problem despite nutritional counseling and maternal iron and folic acid supplementation.

Medical News Today reports:

“Anemic pregnant women living in India, whose urine contained 1 mg/L fluoride or more, were separated into two groups. The experimental group avoided fluoride in water, food and other sources ...

Results reveal that anemia was reduced and pre-term and low-birth-weight babies were considerably fewer in the fluoride-avoidance group.”


Sources:

Medical News Today September 3, 2010

Current Science May 25, 2010, Vol. 98, No. 10

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

Many people are confused about fluoride and they believe that since it is “naturally” found in some water supplies it should be healthy and necessary for optimal human health.

While the logic is sound, it just isn’t true for fluoride. It is a poison when added to the water supply as most U.S. cities do, and it is a poison when occurring naturally as this study demonstrates.

This study was conducted in India, which is one of several countries known to have dangerously high levels of fluoride in their drinking water. This poison comes into contact with water supplies naturally when rocks containing fluoride erode or volcanic activity spews fluoride-containing ash into the air, allowing the colorless, odorless substance to enter groundwater.

In areas where naturally occurring fluoride is high, serious health problems usually become apparent, and that is, unfortunately, what's happening now in India where children are suffering vision loss and bone deformities due to high fluoride exposure.

This study, however, has major implications not only for people in India but for those all over the world who are exposed to fluoride. In the United States, for instance, fluoride is intentionally added to water supplies, putting unborn children at risk.

Fluoride Poses Serious Risks for Pregnant Women and Their Unborn Children

In this latest study, when anemic pregnant women avoided fluoride in their water, food and other sources, their anemia was reduced and premature and low-birth-weight babies were significantly less likely compared to pregnant women exposed to fluoride.

Anemia is a serious complication during pregnancy that can lead to both maternal and infant death, and it appears that fluoride may play a direct role in causing this dangerous condition.

Specifically, fluoride may damage the gastrointestinal mucosa, leading to impaired nutrient absorption and related illnesses like anemia. It has also been linked to:

* Decreased red blood cells
* Reduced blood folic acid activity
* Inhibitions in vitamin B12 production
* Non-absorption of nutrients for hemoglobin synthesis

When the pregnant women avoided fluoride, however, their intestinal lining regenerated, leading to enhanced nutrient absorption and reduced anemia, along with a decreased risk of pre-term birth and improved birth weights for their babies.

In the United States, a similar connection has also been made. Researchers from the State University of New York reported that premature births were more common in communities with fluoridated drinking water than those with non-fluoridated water.

More Reasons Why You Don’t Want to “Fluoridate” Your Baby

Fluoride is a drug. You can't get fluoride without a prescription, yet, if you live in the United States it's being added to your water supply on a mandatory basis at various levels that may or may not be safe for various individuals, especially children, pregnant women, the sick, and the elderly.

Approximately 50 percent of the fluoride that you ingest each day ends up accumulating in your bones over a lifetime. So you're steadily increasing the fluoride levels in your bones over time, which has been linked to arthritis-like symptoms such as joint pains and osteoporosis.

Fluoride also lowers thyroid function. It was used in medicine during the 1930s through 1950s in Europe to treat patients with overactive thyroid glands. This is a very real and significant concern, especially today as millions of people suffer with low thyroid function.

Fluoride in the United States is a Toxic Pollutant

Ninety percent of the chemicals used in fluoridation in the United States do not occur naturally.

Dr. William Hirzy from the EPA has pointed out that if it goes into the air, it's a pollutant. If it goes into the local water, it's pollution. But if the public water utilities buy it and pour it in your drinking water, it's no longer a pollutant. All of a sudden like magic it's a beneficial public health measure (even though fluoride has no benefits whatsoever when ingested).

But even the American Dental Association (ADA), which for many years was one of fluoride's biggest advocates, changed its tune a few years back and warned that parents of infants younger than a year old "should consider using water that has no or low levels of fluoride" when mixing baby formula.

The ADA was concerned about fluorosis, a condition caused by too much fluoride that damages the enamel of teeth and has been linked to more serious developmental problems. Studies have associated fluorosis with lower IQ, endocrine system problems, and skeletal damage.

How to Get Fluoride Out of Your Drinking Water

Sadly, for many people in India and other developing countries there is no access to safer water supplies or reverse osmosis filters that could remove the naturally occurring fluoride from the water, and now generations of children are growing up with serious health problems as a result.

There, the solution lies in securing safer water supplies or filters to remove the naturally occurring poison.

In the United States, there needs to be more pressure to prompt the government to stop adding this poison to municipal water supplies intentionally. The Fluoride Action Network has created a statement calling for an end to fluoridation worldwide that has now been signed by over 3,000 professionals.

We encourage all medical and science professionals to sign this statement.

In the United States, we're likely not going to be able to pass a federal law against fluoridation. There is not going to be a Presidential mandate or even a statewide elimination. This change will occur one community at a time.

So stay tuned, as we will be working to devise a complete game plan to tackle this issue head on. Once we reach the tipping point, which may be as little as 5 percent of the population, we will be able to reverse the policies of water fluoridation.

Until then, you can remove about 80% of the fluoride from your drinking water using a reverse osmosis (RO) filter. It is really hard to remove all of it with virtually any commercial filter. If you are concerned about fluoride the BEST solution is to help the Fluoride Action Network in their campaign to remove it from the water supply.

Keep in mind, too, that water is not the only source of added fluoride.

Although you may not know it, you are exposed to fluoride from many sources other than the obvious lineup of toothpastes and mouth rinses (which I recommend using fluoride-free versions of as well).

Far less obvious sources of fluoride, which I highly recommend avoiding, include:

* Food and beverages processed with fluoridated water
* Mechanically de-boned meat
* Pesticide residue on food
* Pharmaceutical drugs, especially SSRI antidepressants and fluoroquinolone antibiotics like Cipro
* Soy baby formulas
* Instant tea

Two Excellent Fluoride Resources

Professor Paul Connett has informed us that on September 17 he and several other scientists and concerned citizens from the UK, Ireland, Austria and the United States testified before a hearing on water fluoridation organized by the EU’s Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER) in Brussels.

Connett and others raised many concerns about fluoride’s ability to damage your teeth, bone, brain and your endocrine system. They also stressed that there is little solid scientific evidence that ingesting fluoride actually reduces tooth decay.

Professor Connett left the committee a manuscript copy of the book he has co-authored on fluoridation that will be available in October from publisher Chelsea Green, VT, titled “The Case Against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep it There.” Advanced orders for the book can be placed at Amazon.com.

While you are waiting for this book to reach the shelves, Professor Connett urges people to get their own personal copy of the DVD “Professional Perspectives on Water Fluoridation.”

If you have yet to watch this DVD it is a wonderful 30-minute introduction to the issue from 15 highly qualified experts, including a Nobel Prize winner in Medicine, and three members of the important National Research Council panel that published a landmark review of the toxicology of fluoride in water in 2006.

Source:
mercola.com