Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Healthy Teeth

Many dentists and pediatricians will try to tell parents that their children need fluoride pills for healthy teeth. To me that sounded wrong. And when it doubt when something sounds wrong, get a second opinion. When I wouldn't give my son fluoride pills the hygienist said I needed to use fluorinated toothpaste on my two year old who can't spit, now that sounded really wrong. Since the package warns it should not be ingested. Dr. Hyman was my second opinion, and she confirmed my worries.
Fluoride isn't really that great when it comes to protecting teeth. There are a lot of natural products that are better for teeth health than fluoride, for example Myrrh. Apparently fluoride replaces calcium in our body and causes brittleness in all the places you don't want to be brittle. For small children a good toothpaste with natural substances in it can be found at a local health food store. We personally now use Animal Parade Children's Toothpaste.
Here is the booklist that Dr. Robin Hyman thinks is the top 10 about flouride:
Flouride: The Aging Factor by Dr. Yiamouyiannis -- the best researched and most comprehensive
Flouride Deception by Bryson -- new within the last year and excellent
Whole Body Dentistry by Mark A. Breiner -- Talks about all sorts of alternative dentistry
Elements of Danger by Morton Walker
Uninformed Consent by Hall Huggins / Thomas Levy
Roots of Disease by Robertt Kulacz / Thomas Levy
He recommended looking for a "biological dentist" in your area.
There might be a list of praticing biological dentists in in the Mark Breiner book.
I actually haven't gotten to my public library yet to check out the first book, but I am planning to read it.