Fluoride: How it’s beneficial, how it’s harmful, and how to remove it from your water
Fluoride has its benefits, most obviously cleaning your teeth and preventing decay. Fluoride is commonly added to a local water supply to boost your dental health. But, fluoride is a poisonous chemical that can be harmful when too much is ingested, so the question is, do water filters remove fluoride from drinking water? For this reason, we’ll be looking at fluoride, how it’s bad for you, what it is, and how you can prevent its negative effects.
Fluoride: What is it?
Fluoride is a naturally occurring element found in water, soil, even the air we breathe. Most of the fluoride in your body, 99% of it, is stored in your bones and teeth due to its capacity to keep your bones and teeth strong.
Where is it found?
- Dental products – Fluoride is found in your toothpaste and mouthwash for its ability to clean your teeth and prevent cavities. It’s also found in fluoride supplements, which are commonly administered to children who might be susceptible to cavities.
- Water – Groundwater generally has trace levels of fluoride, but it can be highly concentrated in some sources of groundwater, even in dangerous amounts. Public water generally consists of 0.7 parts per million of fluoride concentrate.
- Food – Some foods may contain fluoride due to the water they’re prepared in containing fluoride.
How is fluoride useful?
As previously stated, fluoride is beneficial for your teeth. Your tooth enamel can break down after built-up bacteria break down carbs, producing organic acids. These acids can in turn break down your tooth enamel, the strong layer that protects your teeth. This process of acid eating away your enamel is called demineralization since the breakdown in your enamel is due to the loss of minerals that keep it strong.
Fluoride not only decreases demineralization by killing bacteria and slowing enamel breakdown, but it also increases remineralization by replenishing minerals in the enamel. As long as the amount of minerals lost in the enamel doesn’t outweigh the amount of minerals replenished, your teeth maintain their strength and health.
Why is fluoride bad in excess?
Consuming too much fluoride, even if not ingested, can cause negative repercussions. This negative effect is called fluorosis and can cause white or brown spots to show on teeth. Generally, the dental version of fluorosis is only negative in appearance and isn’t harmful to your health. Dental fluorosis is most common in young children.
Skeletal fluorosis, or fluorosis in your bones, on the other hand, can be detrimental to your health. Skeletal fluorosis is caused by a buildup of fluoride on your bones over the span of many years. This buildup can cause joint pain, stiffness, and can even change bone structure or calcify ligaments. Skeletal fluorosis is generally found in areas where drinking groundwater is common, and that area has high levels of fluoride in their groundwater supply. Skeletal fluorosis is not a concern in areas where fluoride is added to the public water supply since these amounts are strictly monitored.
Other negative effects of fluoride have been claimed, including bone cancer, weak bones, and inhibited brain development. Studies done on weak bones and fluoride levels found correlations between bone fractures and exposure to extremely high or low fluoride levels for extended periods of time. Studies have been done on cancer risks and brain development and fluoride, and no significant correlation has been found.
Fluoride additions to public water have been controversial for a long time since some people feel that it should be the individual’s choice to protect their teeth via fluoride rather than their public water supplier’s choice. However, it is the cheapest way to ensure that the population receives a healthy amount of fluoride to protect their dental health.
So, as with most consumables in life, fluoride is generally only unhealthy in extremely low or high levels for extended periods of time. But, if you’re interested in finding ways to remove fluoride from your drinking water source and controlling your fluoride intake levels on your own terms, you should be aware that not all water filters are capable of this. Thus, we’ll review effective ways of removing fluoride from your water supply.
How to remove fluoride from your water source:
According to the American Dental Association, fluoridated water doesn’t have levels greater than 1 ppm. Non-fluoridated water generally has less than 0.3 ppm. According to the Water Quality Association, there are four effective methods for removing fluoride from your tap water:
- Reverse osmosis – The most popular form of water treatment that makes use of a semipermeable membrane to filter out contaminants.
- Strong base anion exchange – This is generally not a viable option for in-home use. It is difficult to obtain and usually is only used in industrial water treatment.
- Activated alumina adsorption media – If you’ve heard of Berkey filters, these use this method. A Berkey filter is a great option for anyone who needs to make changes to their homes that are temporary due to renting.
- Distillation – Distillation is a good last resort since distillation isn’t technically a form of water filtration. But it can reduce fluoride levels in your water.
How NOT to remove fluoride from your water source:
Many of the most popular forms of in-home water treatment, including PUR and Brita filters (activated carbon filters), LifeStraw, and water softeners do not remove fluoride. Water softeners simply exchange the “harder” ions in your water with softer ones and do not remove fluoride.
There are also no natural ways to remove fluoride from your water, such as boiling water.
The many forms of fluoride removal products:
Luckily for you, there are many forms of fluoride removal available for your home. Below are some suitable options for their respective methods of removal (as chosen by best-osmosis-systems.com):
- Reverse osmosis – reverse osmosis systems that remove fluoride include the Home Master TMAFC-ERP, the iSpring RCC7, and the Aquasana OptimH20. All of these reverse osmosis systems are under-sink systems and remove 94-97% of fluoride from your water. You can pay a large sum to get the Home Master, which removes 97% of fluoride, but generally, the additional few percentage points won’t be worth the investment unless you’re extremely skeptical of the effects of very minimal levels of fluoride. For a whole-house reverse osmosis system, you can look into the iSpring RCS5T. Like the under-sink equivalents, this system still removes 94-96% of fluoride from your water and all it takes is the replacement of pre-filter cartridges.
- Activated alumina – the Big Blue system is a whole-house system that removes 70% of fluoride from your water. This clearly doesn’t perform as well as the reverse osmosis under-sink systems described earlier, but you only need to install one system for the entire house, and it’s known for requiring lower maintenance. Installation of a whole-house system generally requires at least a basic knowledge of plumbing, and if you’re not handy, you might need someone to install it for you. As mentioned earlier, for a great countertop filtration option, look into Berkey filters. These filters can remove 97% of fluoride and have small tank options that hold 1.5 gallons or big tank options that hold 2.25 gallons of water for larger households.
- Available fluoride-removing pitchers – If you’re disappointed that your Brita filter doesn’t remove fluoride, try the Aquagear Pitcher or the ZeroWater 10 Cup Jug. Both remove over 90% of fluoride from your water (as well as other negative contaminants). These filters generally require semi-regular filter changes.
- Distillation – Distillation is always an option. Steam distillation can effectively remove fluoride from your water. Distillers such as the Megahome distiller and the Mophorn Pure Distiller can help to lower your fluoride intake.
There are also water bottles, showerheads, and more that remove fluoride. If you want to lower the fluoride levels of every drop of water you come in contact with, there’s certainly enough fluoride removing products out there to do so (although that might be overkill).
Final thoughts: do water filters remove fluoride?
As we’ve said, fluoride isn’t necessarily your worst enemy. It does have its benefits, but it can be harmful in high amounts. Try to monitor or reduce your fluoride intake with these listed systems. Be aware of where your water comes from and the treatment methods that they use.
Ensure that you’re getting enough fluoride to protect your teeth, but make sure you don’t overdo it and keep an eye out for signs of fluorosis. If you’re aware of these things, you’re already doing a better job at monitoring the effect fluoride has on you than most people.