I respectfully disagree, I'm going to try and post my findings about fluoride soon. I believe that lacking key nutrients in the diet is what makes teeth susceptible to decay, as we see that un-modernized cultures who still eat all whole foods without fluoride supplementation (and I don't think all of them have unnaturally high levels of fluoride in their region) have perfect, or at least much better than American, teeth.

I know myself, I had fluoride supplementation (tablets and toothpaste) until I was about 13 or 14, and had MANY cavities during that time. Since then, no new ones. My diet is better now, but it's not perfect and I don't stay away from sugar 100%.

I have researched extensively on the issue, and this is the conclusion I've come up with. Interestingly, there seem to be many professional dentists who agree with me! They're just not endorsed by the government/mainstream dentistry.

I do thank you for your comment! It's always good to hear and re-research the other side of the story

Water fluoridation actually ever came about because it was observed that children in regions that had naturally fluoridated water had significantly less tooth decay than children in all other parts of the country.

There have been many excellent studies that demonstrate the value of fluoride. Additionally, there have been many great studies that have researched the effects of fluoride on organs (ie several focus on fluoride and the thyroid gland). No effects have been found.

One of the ways that fluoride helps teeth is as follows. Teeth are made up of apatite crystals, which are kind of a base, or functional building block unit. The naturally occurring ones in teeth are hydroxyapatite. Fluoride replaces the hydroxyl ions in the hydroxyapatite crystals, creating what we call fluor-hydroxyapatite. This molecule is much less soluble than the biologically occurring one. Teeth that have fluor-hydroxyapatite are thus "stronger" and less susceptible because they cannot be demineralized as easily. It's totally up to you what you do with you and your children. But you need to know that teeth that have molecules containing fluoride are less easily demineralized than those that don't. Now, if you and your children never eat sugar, than that doesn't matter.

I'd also like to mention that remineralization only works on areas of decay that are not cavitated. What you are calling a cavity is actually a "carious lesion". If those carious lesions are cavitated- the outside layer- enamel- broken, that lesion cannot be remineralized.

Decay does actually start on just inside the surface layer of the tooth. This is because as the inside layers demineralize, some of the minerals being lost get deposited on the more outside layers (the minerals are on their way out of the tooth, but early on in the decay process, they will be re-deposited on a more outer layer). So a person with decay might have a soft inner layer and a solid outside layer. Decay such as this can be remineralized, because the outside layer is still there.

I hope that you do your research on both sides of the line before coming to any conclusions. I too am in favor of natural medicine and always favor a natural remedy over a synthetic one. However, with regards to some topics, the science is too strong to deny.