IQ Losses Continue to Haunt Fluoride

On September 19, Environmental Health Perspectives, a highly-respected journal, published a study linking higher fluoride levels in pregnant women to lower IQ’s in their children.

The decrease was significant. Each 0.5 part per million (ppm) increase in a pregnant woman’s urine fluoride levels reduced her child’s IQ by 2.5 – 3 points. A child of a mother drinking 1 ppm of fluoridated water, close to the U.S standard of 0.7 ppm, would be expected to have a drop of 5 to 6 IQ points compared to a child of a mother drinking water with close to no fluoride in it.

This prospective study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and led by researchers at the University of Toronto School of Public Health.

It was very strong, following pregnant women in Mexico and their children for 12 years, and measuring individual urine levels, a more precise method to determine fluoride exposure than drinking water concentrations. The results were undiminished even after adjusting for a wide array of confounding factors, including lead, smoking, alcohol, socio-economic status and birth weight.

The pro-fluoridation lobby, led by the American Dental Association, quickly denied the significance of the study, arguing “the findings are not applicable to the U.S.”

Mexico, like most nations, doesn’t fluoridate its water. The ADA’s stance stems from the fact that the women were mainly getting their fluoride from consuming fluoridated salt or varying natural levels of fluoride in the water. (The ADA ignores the fact that fluoride’s effects are the same once it’s inside the body, no matter the source.)

Most others felt differently. Lead author Dr. Howard Hu asserted “This is a very rigorous epidemiology study. You just can’t deny it. It’s directly related to whether fluoride is a risk for the neurodevelopment of children. So, to say it has no relevance to the folks in the U.S. seems disingenuous.”

Dr. Leonardo Trasande, a pediatrician unaffiliated with the study at New York University, agreed, saying that “This is a very well-conducted study, and it raises serious concerns about fluoride supplementation in water.”

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NIH Supported Journal Publishes Landmark Study Linking Fluoride to Low IQ

Increased levels of prenatal fluoride exposure have been linked to lower intelligence in children, according to the results of a new study.

In the eye-opening new peer-reviewed study, published on September 19, 2017, in the Journal of Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers found strong evidence of a link between fluoride and lower cognitive function in children.

With an impact factor of 9.78, Environmental Health Perspectives is one of the most highly ranked journals in Toxicology, Public, Environmental and Occupational Health, and Environmental Sciences.

The researchers found that “higher levels of maternal urinary fluoride during pregnancy (a proxy for prenatal fluoride exposure) that are in the range of levels of exposure in other general population samples of pregnant women as well as nonpregnant adults were associated with lower scores on tests of cognitive function in the offspring at 4 and 6–12 y old,” according to the study.

The study involved 1,576 samples taken from over 300 sets of mothers and children in Mexico by a research team from Toronto. The researchers tested the children’s cognitive development twice over the course of 12 years. In Mexico, Fluoride is not added to public water supply, but people are exposed through naturally occurring fluoride in water, toothpaste, fluoridated salt and other supplemental products.

“Childhood exposure to fluoride is safer than prenatal. There is pretty good science now to support the fact that the fetal system tends to be more sensitive to environmental toxicants than once the child is born,” said the study’s lead author, Howard Hu, founding dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, according to CNN.

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The authors of the study looked for chemical markers in the urine of mothers and children, as previous studies attempted to measure fluoride exposure by analyzing environmental factors, such as water.

“Since we’re using an integrated biological marker, it will give you a fairly standardized measure,” Hu explained.

Interestingly, the study found significant effect – with an increase in urine fluoride of 1mg/l being associated with a 5 to 6 point drop in IQ score. For perspective, the average fluoride intake in Mexican mothers was roughly the same as that of women in the United States.

“The range of fluoride levels in Mexico also corresponded closely to the range found in most of the USA. The higher levels were similar to what is found in areas in the USA with fluoridated water, and the lower levels were similar to what is found in most unfluoridated parts of the USA,” according to the Fluoride Action Network (FAN).

According to a report by FAN:

Most of the Mexican women had urine fluoride between 0.5 and 1.5 mg/L. Studies have found that adults in the USA have between about 0.6 and 1.5 mg/L, almost exactly the same range. From the low end of that range to the high end is a difference of 1 mg/L which is what caused the 5 to 6 IQ point difference in the children of the study mothers.

The study found a drop in scores on intelligence tests for every 0.5 milligram-per-liter increase in fluoride exposure beyond 0.8 milligrams per liter found in urine. However, although the researchers found a potential connection to a child’s exposure to fluoride in utero, they found no significant influence from fluoride exposure on brain development once a child was born.

The study reveals the relationship between urine fluoride and IQ in the graph reproduced here:

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FAN has recreated the graph in simplified form to more clearly illustrate the relationship between mothers’ urine fluoride and children’s IQ.

This simplified version of the graph highlights the range of urine fluoride levels common in women in the USA with the blue text and bracket. When comparing mothers at the low end to those at the high end of this range, the subsequent loss of IQ in their children was 6 points. The light red shaded zone around the relationship line is the 95% Confidence Interval and demonstrates that the relationship is statistically significant across the entire range of fluoride exposures.

This is not the first time fluoride has been shown to act as a neurotoxin.

“There have been similar findings related to exposure to fluoride and IQ from children in China. So this observation or association has been reported before,” Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, told CNN. Birnbaum was not involved in the study.

In 2012, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) working in conjunction with China Medical University in Shenyang conducted a meta-analysis of 27 related studies published in Environmental Health Perspectives. The report noted that “fluoride may adversely affect cognitive development in children,” adding “children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas.”

Following up on the original findings, the Harvard cooperative team found “fluoride in drinking water may produce developmental neurotoxicity.”

“Results of our pilot study showed that moderate and severe dental fluorosis was significantly associated with deficits in WISC-IV digit span. Children with moderate or severe dental fluorosis scored significantly lower in total and backward digit span tests than those with normal or questionable fluorosis. These results suggest a deficit in working memory,” according to the Harvard cooperative study.

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While some of the Chinese studies were unable to control for other potential neurotoxins such as lead or mercury, giving it less validity, the new Mexican study controlled for those two neurotoxins, along with socioeconomic status, education and numerous other factors.

“This is a very well-conducted study, and it raises serious concerns about fluoride supplementation in water,” Dr. Leonardo Trasande, a pediatrician who studies potential links between environmental exposures and health problems at New York University Langone Health, told Newsweek. (He was not involved in the new study.)

It seems clear that pregnant women should stay away from fluoride, as it appears to clearly and significantly affect the neurological development of their children in utero, and the rest of the population would likely be wise to do the same given the numerous studies critical of fluoride.

Please share this important information — and especially with anyone you know who is pregnant!

Prenatal Exposure to Flame Retardants Linked With Lower IQ in Children

A report in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives reveals that prenatal exposure to flame retardants may lead to lower IQ test scores in children. Further, the more of the chemicals a pregnant woman is exposed to, the more likely she is to give birth to a child with lower intelligence. [1]

In the meta-analysis, researchers calculated that every tenfold increase in exposure to flame retardants called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) was associated with a 3.7 point decline in kids’ IQ test scores.

Based on that calculation, PBDEs are even more detrimental to fetuses than lead – every tenfold increase in the neurotoxin is associated with “just” a 7-point decline in IQ scores, by comparison.

Study co-author Tracey Woodruff said:

“Even the loss of a few IQ points on a population-wide level means more children who need early interventions, and families who may face personal and economic burdens for the rest of their lives.” [2]

The meta-analysis summarizes and evaluates the full collection of relevant research on the safety of PBDEs. Ten of the studies the researchers included show a link between flame retardants and intelligence.

The team analyzed an additional 9 studies that searched for an association between exposure to flame retardants and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Juleen Lam, an associate research scientist at the University of California San Francisco, said the 9 papers don’t provide enough evidence of a connection between the chemicals and ADHD. [1]

However, the link between flame retardants and intelligence is undeniable, according to Lam.

“The evidence strongly suggests that PBDEs are damaging kids’ intelligence.”

Knowing this, Lam said, children should be protected from these chemicals to “prevent intelligence loss.”

She added:

“We’re really seeing this as a wake-up call to policymakers.”

Researchers are trying to tease out how PBDEs lower intelligence. So far, the evidence suggests the chemicals impair the activity of the endocrine system, the body’s systems of hormone-producing glands which play a role in the body’s circadian rhythm, sexual development, metabolism, and other functions. When a woman is pregnant, her endocrine system heavily influences the development of her fetus’ brain.

Read: Common Flame Retardant Chemical Found to Cause Brain Damage

There are multitudinous types of PBDEs, and several of them have already been banned in the United States. Most new furniture doesn’t contain those chemicals, said Arlene Blum, a scientist with the Green Science Policy Institute, who wasn’t involved in the study.

Nevertheless, Woodruff, a professor at UCSF, said that “everyone is exposed to PBDEs, so this means that there are potentially millions of IQ points that are lost across the population.” Moreover, “children can be affected for generations to come.” [2]

Banned But Still Prevalent

Source: Environmental Working Group

Another study led by Hurley, published in March, 2017, showed a gradual plateau in bodily levels of flame retardants – even an increase in some people. Hurley believes that’s likely because as people have disposed of or incinerated their old furniture, PBDEs have made their way into the environment. [1]

Now, Hurley theorizes, the chemicals are getting into the food supply, as old furniture and foams containing PBDEs have been tossed into landfills or incinerated, causing the chemicals to leach into runoff and/or spewed into the air.

Whether or not flame retardants actually make fires less deadly is up for debate. Bryan Goodman, a spokesman for the industry group American Chemistry Council, said that flame retardants help save lives by providing individuals with a critical layer of fire protection. He added that “the major manufacturers of flame retardants have spent millions of dollars on research both before and after their products go on the market.”

Read: How To Avoid Toxins In Flame-Retardant Household Products

Source: Environmental Working Group

However, some past studies seemed to suggest that flame retardants actually give rise to toxic fumes. Ami Zota, an environmental health scientist at George Washington University who studies flame retardants but wasn’t involved in the paper, said their efficacy is “not really backed up by well-supported data.”

Sources:

[1] Newsweek

[2] U.S. News & World Report

Environmental Working Group

Environmental Working Group

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