Is the fluoride used in artificial fluoridation any different to that already found naturally in the water?
Anti-fluoridationists have often suggested that fluoride occurring naturally is different to that from artificial fluoride compounds, that absorption of fluoride could be lower in hard water (because calcium in high concentrations can bind to fluoride and reduce its absorption) and that fluoride from artificial chemical is absorbed at nigher amounts that naturally occurring fluoride. The UK Department of Health commissioned the University of Nottingham to investigate these claims, and their report “Bioavailability of fluoride in drinking water – a human experimental study” was released in 2004. It found “no evidence for any differences between the absorption of fluoride ingested in artificially fluoridated drinking water and in drinking water in which the fluoride is present naturally at fluoride concentrations close to 1 part per millions”. Nor did they find any evidence for difference between the absorption of fluoride from hard and soft waters at these fluoride concentrations.
