Do water filtration systems (Pur, Britta, etc.) remove the fluoride that is added to tap water? Is fluoride still added to tap water?
I have an under-sink two-stage filter that claims to filter down to one micron, but nowhere on the filter cartriges does it say anything about removing fluoride. I suspect that this is because the fluoride is held in the water in solution, not suspension.
The only kind of filter that can remove desirable eliments like fluoride are the reverse-osmosis types.
Whatcha got against fluoride, anyways?
Nothing at all. I love fluoride. For the last year or so, the only water that ever goes into my mouth is passed through one of these filters. I just wanted to know if my teeth have been missing out on the wonderful benefits of having fluoride in the tap water.
Well then you’re golden. And as for the second part of your question, all surface & ground water in the U.S. contains some naturally occurring fluoride. If a community’s water supply is fluoride-deficient (less than 0.7 parts fluoride per million parts water) fluoridation simply adjusts the fluoride’s natural level, bringing it to the level recommended for decay prevention (0.7-1.2 parts per million).
Being served by a major municipal water system pretty much guarantees fluoridation of your water supply.
By the way, where exactly is Crapchester?
Rochester, NY area. Thanks for the info!!
I did some research (literature review, not original) on this about 4 years back. Activated carbon, the adsorption media in these type of filters, is great at removing many organics, including chemicals that adversely affect taste and odor (not to mention carcinogenic trihalomethanes).
One would not think that activated carbon would have any effect on dissolved ions, and this appears to be the case with fluoride. However, some research does indicate that some dissolved lead and other heavy metal ions may be removed from the treated water.
When I installed a counter-top filter of this type, my wife and I were concerned about whether or not fluoride was removed, since we didn’t want Robby Jr. to have soft teeth.
Fluoride is removed by ion exchange resins, not by membrane or activated charcoal filters. Any system that claims to remove chloride from the water will also remove fluoride.
The ion exchange resins used for water treatment typically look like masses of small golden yellow,green or red, beads with diameters of 1mm or less.
Some of the resins remove cations like lead,iron or mercury, others remove anions like chloride, fluoride or sulphate, while some resins will bind to both cations and anions. The label should tell you what type of resin you have.
My dentist told me that ingested fluoride doesn’t affect teeth much. It has to make contact the enamel to “work”. He explained that the fluoride in toothpastes or rinses combines with the calcium in the teeth to create an ultra hard compound, which the enamel is made of.