Hip fractures in postmenopausal women linked to fluoridated drinking water from The Fluoridation RecordMay2021Anewsletter of East Coast Science News, Belchertown, Massachusetts, USA

 

Hip fractures in postmenopausal women linked to fluoridated drinking water 

                Lifetime exposure to drinking water with 1 milligram per liter fluoride or less increased the risk of hip fracture in postmenopausal women, according to a report in the April issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, the official journal of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

                Researchers at the Karolinska Institute and the University of Uppsala studied over 4,000 postmenopausal women, participants in the Swedish Mammography Cohort-Clinical program, measuring their fluoride concentration in urine, estimating their oral intake from diet and water, including residential history, and collecting fracture data via register-linkage.

                The authors found a more than 50 percent increased risk of hip fracture in the subjects in the group of women exposed to high levels of fluoride than in those in the least exposed group.

“The risk of hip fractures was increased among Swedish women who had the highest levels of

urine fluoride excretion and the highest estimated fluoride intake from beverages and food relative to women with the lowest levels of each exposure. Our findings, which are consistent with the effects of high fluoride exposures observed in randomized controlled trials (resulting in a denser but more fragile skeleton), suggest that long-term consumption of tap water with a fluoride concentration of 1 milligram per liter, which is below the 1.5 milligram per liter maximum concentration recommended by the WHO, may adversely affect bone health in postmenopausal women,” they concluded.

Helte, E., Vargas, C.D., Kippler, M., et al. 2021. Fluoride in drinking water, diet, and urine in relation to bone mineral density and fracture incidence in popstmenopausal women. Environmental Health Perspectives 129(4), April 6, 2021.

New Zealand government poised to fluoridate whole country 

                Despite the steady accumulation of research findings that fluoridated drinking water puts the developing brains of children at risk of damage, as measured by lower IQ scores, the New Zealand parliament is expected to approve a bill that would result in the fluoridation of water supplies across the country.

                The original bill would have taken the fluoridation decision away from elected Councils and given it to unelected District Health Boards. It was amended on March 18 to remove even that token level of local control, and now gives the authority to a single bureaucrat, the nation’s Health Director General.

                Press coverage of the issue in New Zealand reveals that the compelling evidence of fluoride’s neurotoxicity has not been taken into consideration in discussions of the proposed change in fluoridation policy.

                This reporter has sent emails with an annotated bibliography on the neurotoxicity research to almost all 120 members of the New Zealand parliament. While most responded, no member acknowledged the neurotoxic risk of fluoride in drinking water, nor the need to consider it before putting the chemical in the rest of the nation’s water supplies.

                The proposed change in fluoridation law in New Zealand has been accompanied by an anti-democratic sentiment in the press, with some commentators saying the elected Councils should be stripped of other powers as well.

                Under the bill, local Councils would have to pay for capital and operational costs of fluoridation, according to press reports.