We’ve discussed the many problems with fluoride in past articles.
Regulatory agencies still haven’t budged on their official position that water fluoridation is a wonderfully beneficial public health policy with no inherent risks. Meanwhile, a tidal wave of anti-fluoride research and activism continues to build—there’s now such an abundance of evidence illustrating fluoride’s toxicity that the position of policy makers seems either laughable or outright deceitful. The EPA—which now lists fluoride as a neurotoxin—is the one exception (though their opinion doesn’t seem to be having much effect on actual policy).
Over 100 studies have conclusively linked fluoride to cognitive dysfunction, endocrine disruption, childhood development issues, and many other health problems.[1] For this reason, nearly a dozen countries around the world have already banned water fluoridation, and many U.S. cities and counties have also rejected it. You can find out if your city fluoridates its water supply here. We’ve discussed the grave health risks of consuming fluoride in greater detail here and here.
If you live in a place with integrated access to unfluoridated water, you’re among the lucky few. If the rest of us wish to protect ourselves from the ravages of fluoride toxicity, we need to take measures into our own hands.
So what’s the solution?
The obvious move is to remove fluoride from your life by whatever measures possible. This can be rather tricky, though—water filters will not remove fluoride unless they’re specifically designed to do so (none of the most popular mainstream products come equipped with this feature, so be sure to seek it out specifically). Fluoride toothpaste is also a no-no, and even showering without a filter can be hazardous without purchasing yet another specialty filter.
Luckily, a new study demonstrates that turmeric can protect against (and even reverse) the neurotoxicity caused by fluoride.
This study is ground-breaking for two reasons: it provides further rock-solid evidence that fluoride is highly toxic, and it shows that turmeric is an incredibly promising “antidote” for this widespread poison.
Research protocol requires that study hypotheses are presented with great rigor and without leaps in logic—so it’s a huge deal that this study posits right at the start that “fluoride toxicity through drinking water is well-recognized as a global problem,” and that “health effect reports on fluoride exposure include various cancers, adverse reproductive activities, cardiovascular, and neurological diseases.”[2]
Turmeric is well-known for its remarkable brain-supporting abilities. It’s a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent, and has even been used with great success to treat Alzheimer’s patients. This is one of the first attempts to quantity its specific effects on fluoride-induced brain damage (that’s right: your drinking water may be giving you brain damage).
For this study, researchers measured neurotoxicity with a fittingly named marker known as brain rancidity. This state describes a type of oxidative stress in the brain called lipid peroxidation, which dramatically accelerates the creation of highly damaging free radicals.
They measured changing levels of brain rancidity across four groups of mice: one given no fluoride or curcumin (one of active components in turmeric), one given only fluoridated water, one given fluoridated water and curcumin, and one given only curcumin.
The results were remarkable: mice given only fluoridated water exhibited dramatically increased levels of brain rancidity, but the mice also given curcumin maintained very near normal, non-toxic levels. Curcumin was able to neutralize all the potential damage!
Researchers attribute this effect to turmeric’s unrivaled capacity to protect against a wide variety of oxidative free radicals, to control inflammation (in the brain and throughout the body), and to boost the body’s production of its own antioxidants.
Just one of many reasons to become friends with turmeric
Because it targets so many of the fundamental factors behind disease and toxicity, turmeric has been proven helpful for nearly every health problem imaginable. And because fluoride toxicity is such a looming risk for the vast majority of Americans, turmeric’s ability to counteract it is just one more reason why everyone can benefit from integrating turmeric into his or her life.
It’s important to use turmeric in the right way, though, if you want to receive its therapeutic benefits to the full extent. In the study cited above, curcumin was dissolved in olive oil, because binding turmeric alkaloids to a fatty substance creates an emulsion that is more readily absorbed by the body.
A process called liposomal delivery takes this one step further by completely merging turmeric compounds with a phospholipid to create a liposome. Liposomes ensure that turmeric is absorbed up to twenty times more completely than regular turmeric. So if you’re really serious about using turmeric to protect yourself against fluoride toxicity, make sure to pick up a liposomal turmeric extract, like this one from Purathrive.
The slowness with which policy makers are responding to the dire need to ban water fluoridation is incredibly frustrating—but by taking a liposomal turmeric extract on a daily basis, you can ensure that the health of your brain (and your entire body) is safeguarded.
References
[1] http://fluoridealert.org/issues/health/brain/
[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3969660/