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Jun 17th, '10, 03:53
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Fluoride in tea

by Chesslover » Jun 17th, '10, 03:53

I have searched through forum, but haven't found anything deeper about this topic...fluoride in tea...

A lot of authors see fluoride in tea as a positive thing - something that is good for your teeth (preventing cavities), but apparently that is not the whole story...fluoride seems to build up in body, especially in bones, where it replaces calcium...and it doesn't go out of the body easily - it builds up day after day...and it can result in osteofluorosis or skeletal fluorosis (arthritis-like symptoms)...

Moreover when fluoride is found together with aluminium (as in tea), this can be harmful for your brain cells (causing alzheimer disease)...

Here is an article about it:
http://poisonfluoride.com/pfpc/html/green_tea___.html

Some say, that the amount of fluoride in tea is so small, that it doesn't matter...but when considering every day intake of small amounts - they can build up pretty quickly...additionally fluoride can get to the body from other sources (as I have heard in USA fluoride is usually added to tap water for preventing cavities?)...

Here is a research about the amount of fluoride in different tea and different steeping times:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21970172/Avai ... direct-com

It can be seen that white tea is the most "healthy" of real teas...but when you consider steeping times for white tea compared with green tea, things can change...

What do you think of it? Did you know about it? Do you consider it as a drawback for tea drinking?

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Jun 17th, '10, 08:05
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Re: Fluoride in tea

by TIM » Jun 17th, '10, 08:05

If this is true, two thousands years plus of Buddhdism might be at loss.... Alzheimer monks with crappy weak bones. Senior monks can't remeber Zen Teachings/Scriptures and can't even cross their legs at meditation moment. :lol: What a sad sight :shock:
Last edited by TIM on Jun 17th, '10, 13:47, edited 1 time in total.

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Jun 17th, '10, 12:42
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Re: Fluoride in tea

by artmom » Jun 17th, '10, 12:42

Chesslover, This is another area in which the United States is split! Many people are against adding fluoride to the drinking water. Many are for it.

Before I lived where fluoride was added to the water, I had many cavities. Since living where fluoride is added to the water, I don't get new cavities.

As to Alzheimer's, the medical folk don't know for certain what causes it. Aluminum has been one of the many substances researched as a factor.

I, personally, have no problem with fluoride being added to my water, or being in my tea. I will accept the consequences of this decision.

When researching any subject to do with health, I try to find both sides of an issue. Then, I make a decision whether or not to use the drug, the food, have the surgery, etc. Whatever decision I make, I then accept the consequences for that decision. You could drive yourself crazy with all the choices in this world!

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Re: Fluoride in tea

by beecrofter » Jun 17th, '10, 16:24

Someday you will die.

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Jun 17th, '10, 16:31
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Re: Fluoride in tea

by entropyembrace » Jun 17th, '10, 16:31

Fluoride in tea is from the tea trees absorbing fluorine ions naturally in the soil and accumulating it in their leaves, most plants do that so it´s not unique to tea...the vegetables you eat have small concentrations of fluoride in them too. They absorb other things like lead, cadmium and arsenic too but the concentrations are too low to be dangerous unless the plants are grown in contaminated soil.

Fluoride in drinking water and dental hygene products is another issue and the concentrations can get disturbingly high...fluoride has known toxcicity like most other minerals and it´s actually pretty dangerous...check out a MSDS (material safety data sheet) for sodium fluoride (which is what´s normally added to drinking water) sometime.

http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/SO/sodium_fluoride.html

awesome huh? :roll:

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Re: Fluoride in tea

by silverneedles » Jun 17th, '10, 17:20

beecrofter wrote:Someday you will die.
monty python?

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Re: Fluoride in tea

by Proinsias » Jun 17th, '10, 17:49

It doesn't concern me. As Tim says there people have been heavily consuming tea and living long healthy lives for a very long time.

The toothpaste I use to remove tea stains from my teeth I imagine has far more fluoride than the tea itself.

Avoiding tea due to fluoride is up there with tinfoil hats for me, but then again I smoke.

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Re: Fluoride in tea

by Chesslover » Jun 18th, '10, 05:24

Proinsias wrote:It doesn't concern me. As Tim says there people have been heavily consuming tea and living long healthy lives for a very long time.
Do you think nowadays tea plants get more fluoride from the (more polluted) enviroment?

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Re: Fluoride in tea

by Proinsias » Jun 18th, '10, 12:26

No idea. But the idea is an excuse to drink old pu'er and new high quality teas from known sources.

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Re: Fluoride in tea

by brad4419 » Jun 18th, '10, 15:44

Moderation is the key. Sure, if you drink 2-3 gallons of tea a day over time you might have some negative effect. If you drink 3 gallons of about anything a day you could develop some health related problem. Anything, no matter how healthy will be bad for you if consumed in ridiculous amounts. Even water will kill you if you drink way too much too fast.
Last edited by brad4419 on Jun 18th, '10, 15:47, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Fluoride in tea

by Proinsias » Jun 18th, '10, 15:46

As Paracelsus once said:
"Everything is poison, there is poison in everything. Only the dose makes a thing not a poison."

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Re: Fluoride in tea

by silverneedles » Jun 18th, '10, 20:36

Proinsias wrote:As Paracelsus once said:
"Everything is poison, there is poison in everything. Only the dose makes a thing not a poison."
heh thats my email sig :)

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by brose » Jun 19th, '10, 17:22

It dose not seem like a surprising article from a website with the url poisonfluoride.com. Something along the lines of "Fluoride is not that bad" would be noteworthy. It is good to be aware of the possibilities, but there does not seem to be anything alarming from these links.
I like a bit of fluoride for my teeth. It helps especially with those who do not brush/clean their teeth regularly from having massive amounts of tooth decay. I myself am obsessive about clean teeth. Like it has been mentioned before, moderation is the key.
As for the MSDS, they seem to take a worst possible case assessment and make almost anything seem bad, look at the MSDS of water for example.

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Re:

by entropyembrace » Jun 22nd, '10, 20:43

brose wrote: As for the MSDS, they seem to take a worst possible case assessment and make almost anything seem bad, look at the MSDS of water for example.
4g of fluoride can be lethal to an adult...4g of water is harmless...no comparison. The MSDS tells you what concentrations are considered harmful.

If you use fluoride toothpaste read the labels...if you live in the United States or Canada it will have a warning saying if you ingest it to call a poison control center!

Fluoride is more toxic than lead...look at the toxicological information on these pages (more detailed MSDS´s that I posted earlier)
fluoride:
http://www.sciencelab.com/xMSDS-Sodium_fluoride-9927595
lead:
http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927204

So given fluoride is considered much more dangerous than lead by chemists...how would you feel if the government added 1mg/L of lead to your drinking water on purpose, without consideration for any other possible lead exposures you might have? Because that´s exactly what they did with fluoride.

I seriously don´t understand how people can freak out about the possibility of a few mg total of lead on their teaware but happily guzzle down several mg of fluoride each day...

the worst thing is that we´re all being medicated against our will with fluoride...bottled water is expensive...what choice do most of us have but to drink the stuff?

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Re: Fluoride in tea

by Chesslover » Jun 23rd, '10, 02:56

Thank you entropyembrace...that's what I was talking about...

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