this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Its presence in groundwater is how we discovered it's good for teeth.

In fact, there used to be so much in some areas,it actually stained the teeth. In Colorado Springs a dentist noticed that the children were developing brown stains on their teeth. In researching it, it was discovered that the "Colorado Brown Stain" was caused by excessive fluoride in the drinking water. But it also lead to the discovery that regions with natural fluoride present but in lower levels than Colorado Springs didn't have stained teeth, but did have lower levels of tooth decay.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 18 hours ago

Yep. In fact, 21% of the world's natural drinking water used falls within the recommended range for fluoride, while over another 20% is higher and in some countries actually does cause some non-superficial side effects and problems. Those don't pop up until in concentrations at least 3 times higher than recommended.