Pineal gland - Wikipedia I’m trying to refute some claims that fluoride causes your pineal gland to calcify, which is why you must only drink unfluoridated water and avoid toothpaste with it etc. It seems clear it is real and happens with age, and is at least correlated with dementia and old age. What isn’t clear is if it bad, or is even possible to avoid. Also there is a fringe conspiracy the ebbil gubmint is putting fluoride in water to make the populace have calcified pineal glands so they will be compliant uncreative sheep. 
Correlation is not causation.
Besides, it is not that there is any evidence that flouridisation causes pineal calcification.
Really the only link to flouride is that the calcium in the body also has flouride in it. This is perfectly normal, insignificant and expected result of flouride for teeth decay prevention. The flouride does not cause any disease.
If you correlate pineal gland disease with flouride use, they will correlate more than other things like rickets or malaria, because pineal gland disorders correlate with old age, and so does flouride use ( in communities where people prefer to look after themselves, they live longer AND use flouride to reduce tooth decay.)
To clarify I meant it is clear pineal gland calcification is a thing, not that fluoride causes it. I meant it is clear it is real and correlated with age, not that fluoride is to blame.
There seems to be a grand total of one published study in recent years correlating Alzheimer’s and pineal gland calcification (it actually looked at size of uncalcified pineal tissue as opposed to amount of calcification). There have been by actual count umpty-zillion journal articles published in recent decades correlating Alzheimer’s with various things, but most go unreplicated and we are still struggling with pathogenesis of the disease and how to treat it.
There is even less evidence linking water fluoridation with Alzheimer’s. I think it would have been noticed by now if those communities with naturally high levels of fluoride in their water were full of demented people.
There may well be a correlation between antifluoridation obsession and dementia. But I’d need to see good evidence for that too.
Besides, everyone knows that it’s chemtrails that cause Alzheimer’s.
I’ve had my H. P. Lovecraft moment for this week. Thank you.
It’s from beyond my ability not to link the Pineal gland to his work.
This, my friends, is why I drink only rain water and pure grain alcohol–to protect my [del]precious bodily fluids[/del] pineal gland.
While it is not impossible that some serious negative side effect of water/toothpaste fluoridation shall yet be discovered, you’re almost certainly safe assuming that anything of this sort said about it is utter bunkum.
Still, this thread could be fun if a true believer happens to parachute in from Google.
Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Scotland, and Iceland do not fluoridate their water supplies.
Why do you suppose that is?
Facts aren’t democratic.
It’s possible that enough idiots are paranoid about fluoride in some parts of the world that they can prevent it from being added to the water supply. That’s not proof of anything except widespread belief in woo.
It’s also possible that scientists in those countries have reviewed the evidence and determined that the supposed benefits of water fluoridation weren’t worth the risks.
Care to cite those risks?
Since when do scientists run countries? Politicians run countries, make laws, and decide policy. Politicians will do whatever they think will win votes.
Wow, LawMonkey, how did you do that? I mean - the very next post, 10 minutes later!
Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland (not to mentionthe Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Spain) allow the sale of flouridated salt directly to consumers.
If it’s so dangerous, why would those governments allow flouride in a product so commonplace as salt?
Because iodine causes pinealification?
Of those three articles, one relates to staining of teeth if fluoride concentrations in water are too high - this is chiefly a risk in communities with naturally high fluoride levels in drinking water, but not of real significance elsewhere.
The Sci Am article (the link only shows a short preview) is not revelatory of anything.
The study about fluoridation and intelligence has been challenged elsewhere, notably in a large New Zealand study that refuted claims of fluoridation lowering IQ scores…
*"Dr. Broadbent suggests that studies finding an association between water fluoridation and reduced IQ tend to have used poor research methodology with a high risk of bias. Speaking to Medical News Today, he said of the Harvard study: “The authors stated that each of the articles reviewed had deficiencies, in some cases rather serious. It is a meta-analysis based on poor quality research.”
He adds that the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Study, by comparison, is world-renowned for the quality of its data and rigor of its analysis.
In conclusion, Dr. Broadbent says:
"Our findings will hopefully help to put another nail in the coffin of the complete canard that fluoridating water is somehow harmful to children's development. In reality, the total opposite is true, as it helps reduce the tooth decay blighting the childhood of far too many New Zealanders."*
Note the reference in the linked article to the proposition that Nazis supported water fluoridation in an effort to damage their citizens’ pineal glands and make them more docile.
I would argue that the state of non-docility in the United States following years of widespread fluoridation is pretty good evidence that this theory is hilarious hoo-hah.
This is a far more intelligent way of distributing fluoride since sodium consumption is far much more uniform than tap water consumption.
If long-term randomized controlled trials demonstrated that fluoride was safe I would not be opposed to fluoridating table salt.
There are decades of research showing fluoride has significant benefits. If it has a negative effect on human health, it is at best minor and quite possibly overcome by the clear positive effects.
As noted above, European countries’ choice not to fluoridate is based on popular opinion, not on scientific consensus (which is and has been pro-fluoridation for what that is worth).
It strikes me just how similar this is to anti-vax arguments. Forget all the existing trials and research and simply demand a new set of trials complete with the underlying implication that they don’t already exist.
As for the OP, the incidence of Alzheimer’s is similar between Western Europe and the US (and high) while fluoridation is quite dissimilar between Western Europe and the US (a fact our resident anti-fluoridation poster has shown here). Rather than fluoridation, there seems to be a much higher correlation based on wealth (and subsequently longer lifespans and access to better healthcare to prevent death and disease from other causes).
That’s not absolute proof but it does mean any correlation between fluoridation and Alzheimer’s is necessarily going to be weaker than suggested by conspiracy theorists.
Do you have any RCTs to support this view?
Cite?
Guilt by association fallacy (Logical Fallacy: Guilt by Association). Why do you have to rely upon fallacies to bolster your argument?