What are the advantages of crest pro-health versus other toothpaste formulations?
On the web, there’s scores of people complaining that it made their teeth brown and more sensitive. An old thread on stannous flouride said that if you swallow it, it’s more likely to kill you.
But that just means stannous flouride has other benefits, right? I found a recent study that says it’s considerably more effective against gingivitis, and a very old study that said it was also better at preventing cavities, but this study used the flouride in a very different way (high-strength application four times… not low-dosage daily). Other sources (and anecdotal reports) say that it’s better at killing bacteria and preventing plaque (that should reduce demineralization, right?).
My goal is prevention/restoration of cavities. Do the benefits outweigh the side-effects? Should I maybe switch off with a regular toothpaste every other day? Moreover, what do the other ingredients do? Wikipedia says the real point of stannous flouride is that it works with calcium abrasives. Does Pro-Health have those abrasives? Are they damaging to enamel?
I have never heard of tin being used in consumer products like this. I have no studies to back up my point of view; however, when I think of tin, I think of deadly poison. If I were to see that my toothpaste was flavored with tin anything I would switch brands. As far as I’m concerned, tin is the same as mercury.
Keep in mind though, the tin compounds I’m used to dealing with are organo-tin compounds. Modify your reaction accordingly.
I’m really surprised to hear this, as well. It seems to have been used for years, though, so I wouldn’t be too worried on the toxicity. Eating pure SnF2 in any appreciable quantity would almost certainly kill you - I assume the concentrations in toothpaste are extremely low. It wouldn’t be my toothpaste of choice, all the same. Have you seen the safety sheet here?
There are some odd uses of heavy metals in health - peptobismol is a classic example - drink a bismuth salt to calm acid indigestion.
I’m pretty sure there are a couple, but you may have picked a bad couple of days to expect responses from them. I’m not sure where you are, but yesterday was a major holiday in the US, and it’s not at all uncommon for professionals to take Wednesday through Friday off to celebrate it.
Crest has contained --and widely advertised-- Stannous fluoride under the trade name “Fluoristan”, since at least the early 1970s when I was a small boy studying chemistry as a hobby. I recall ads going back to the 60s, long before I “decoded” it (or could read for tht matter. The red triangle at the crimp end (pointed at the nozzle) read “contains Fluoristan”
Actually … why yes, here’s a Crest commercial from the 1960s that makes a big deal about Crest’s “Fluoristan”. “Secret ingredients” (that were no secret at all) were much bigger then. That didn’t work out so well. I remember when TV ads had doctors touting Kent as the healthiest cigarette because of its “Micronite” filter. What was Micronite? Asbestos, as it turned out – one of the worst things for a smoker to be getting in their lungs. It can cause mesothelioma in anyone. The wives/families of asbestos workers often got cancer from fibers carried home on clothes.
Since I’m a sucker for TV commercials from my youth, here are some harder facts:
Crest with Fluoristan was an original sponsor of The Addams Family (1964-1966) This ad with a young Marcia Wallace (later of The Bob Newhart Show) specifically cites Stannous Fluoride.
I already said my experience with tin is biased. It’s nice that people can feel free to quote part of my answer and pretend the rest doesn’t exist though. Clearly stanous fluoride has been used in toothpaste for years. I’ve obviously used it, with no ill effects that I know of.
Nevertheless, tin is a heavy metal. I just checked all of my toothpaste to make sure it wasn’t present. I’ll never buy toothpaste with tin in it.
The comparison of tin and chlorine is not very good. You may be able to find a poison with a chlorine attatched to it that is lethal in very small quantities, but that toxicity will have little to do with the chlorine. Hexamethylditin on the otherhand has an LD50 of 7.3 mg/kg and can easily be absorbed through the skin. That is pretty typical of tin compounds I deal with.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the tin was directly responsible for stannous flouride’s beneficial antibacterial/antiplaque/anticavity/antigingivitis properties. But to what magntiude are they beneficial that I should suffer the risk of brown, sensitive teeth and even poisoning??
P.S. to the guy who compared tin to mercury… if you’ve forgotten, my mouth already contains plenty of the latter.
Yes, you have Hg(0) in your fillings, and as long as it stays Hg(0), there is no health risk. As has been demonstrated, ad nauseum in this thread, the harm of a chemical depends on its chemical state. The problem is that some compounds (especially heavy metals) have a tendency to arbitrarily switch states. With heavy metals the damage is cumulative, and there is no way to go back once a problem is discovered.
I can assure you, I’m the last person that’s going to run around sending out scare tactic spam claiming the harm of stanous fluoride. Like dental amalgams, it has been used safely for many years and is probably perfectly safe. Also, like dental amalgams, I will shy away from using it.