Fluoride and Acne: Does This Remineralising Ingredient Destroy Your Skin?

Depending on who you believe, sodium fluoride is one of two things. It could be a toxic drug linked to a range of deadly health problems which is dumped into US water supplies and forcibly medicating everybody.

Alternatively, fluoride could be a gloriously healthy mineral that’s keeping teeth and bones strong across the globe. Sodium fluoride was originally observed to be a component of human tooth enamel by dentists in the early 20^th century. By 1951, fluoridisation of drinking water was an official plank of US Public Health Service policy.

It’s now the active demineralising agent in most toothpastes. Water fluoridation continues today with roughly 60% of the US population drinking it.

But there is indeed a dark side and we’re going to discuss it right now. Fluoride is known to be highly toxic to the body in only low levels. Studies show problems like cancer, damage to sperm quality and mobility in men, disrupted testosterone and estrogen levels.

One study on children found that as fluoridated water intake rose from 0.3ppm to 3 ppm, their average IQ score dropped by a whopping 5 points.

Countries that once enthusiastically fluoridated their water are getting cold feet; Israel banned the practise in 2014 and consumer campaigns are pushing hard in America.

Water fluoridation is already outlawed in Greece, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. There’s an excellent reason why every toothpaste box warns you to only use a pea-sized portion and never swallow the contents.

Could ingesting fluoride on a daily basis also cause acne?

The answer is a stone-cold yes. There’s actually a medically recognised term for fluoride-induced acne and it’s called fluoroderma. Fluoride causes inflammation, depletes antioxidants and disturbs your hormones.

 

Fluoride is an inflammatory menace

You only have to visit google to find endless studies linking fluoride to chronic inflammation:

ONE – exposure to fluoride led to “rapid inflammatory reactions” involving immune system macrophages, followed by a surge in acne-causing pro-inflammatory chemicals like prostaglandin PGE2 and thromboxane TXA2. The study’s conclusion: “NaF (fluoride), even in small concentrations, may induce an inflammatory process”.

TWO – in human lung cells, fluoride triggered the release of two pro-inflammatory chemicals called interleukin-6 and interleukin-8 (study). Meanwhile, in another study, acne patients had substantially higher levels of IL8 in their skin. Supposedly, workers exposed to fluoride in the aluminium industry have higher rates of asthma, and asthma shares many similarities with acne; this time inflammation of the lungs.

THREE – after consuming fluoride, 7 week old rats experienced a surge in two pro-inflammatory cytokines called tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-a) and resistin. Fluoride also lowered insulin sensitivity substantially (2012 study).

FOUR – a fresh 2019 study, on mouse (surprisingly, no humans volunteered) liver cells treated with fluoride. Every inflammatory chemical imaginable shot upwards, including interleukin-1β (IL-1β), IL-6, IL-8, and the grand inflammatory overlord NF-KappaB, which controls many smaller chemicals. Meanwhile, the anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-4 was inhibited.

Fluoride is so toxic that it’s hardly surprising your immune system launches an all-out assault against it.

There’s even evidence that fluoride can alter the shape of enzymes and proteins in your body. They morph into unusable forms which your body doesn’t recognise, get treated as foreign invaders, and are attacked by an immune response.

One such protein is collagen, the structural protein behind tightness, wound/pimple healing, and ageing. Collagen is fantastic for your skin tone, let alone acne, but according to this and this study, fluoride may reduce it. In rats, fluoride strongly reduced the collagen type 1 alpha 1 gene (COL1A1) after 6 months; type 1 is the collagen which accumulates in skin, rather than type 2 in joint cartilage (also shown to fall here).

 

Fluoride depletes your antioxidants stocks!

With oxidative stress, the second root cause of acne, the evidence vault is even richer. Oxidative stress is when free radicals reign supreme and antioxidants are extinct, and fluoride can cause it:

ONE – this huge review analysed a raft of studies concerning fluoride and oxidative stress.

Firstly, fluoride strongly depleted the body’s indigenous, non-dietary antioxidants, including superoxide dismutase and glutathione. Acne patients contain lower levels of both antioxidants in their bloodstream.

Secondly, fluoride could spawn numerous types of free radicals, but particularly lipid peroxides. These villains require fat soluble antioxidants to deactivate them, meaning that fluoride particularly depletes your stocks of vitamin E, the most important acne vitamin.

TWO – then we have the individual studies. This one examined 100 children with skeletal fluorosis (fluoride molecules accumulating in the bone), with varying dietary intakes of 1.2, 2.4, 5.6 and 13.6 mg/l.

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The scientists found “increasing oxidative stress in cases of fluorosis with increasing drinking water fluoride concentration.” Supplementing with vitamins C and D reduced the harm, and vitamin C is the body’s main water soluble antioxidant.

THREE – 38 patients aged 41-50 from Tamil Nadu, India were divided into 4 groups: 1) no signs of dental fluorosis (fluoride toxicity characterised by white spots on the teeth), 2) mild, 3) moderate, and 4) severe dental fluorosis (study).

The higher the fluoride levels, the higher bloodstream levels of free radicals called thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS). Vitamin E-depleting lipid peroxides were higher once again. The scientists observed “increased lipid peroxidation and altered antioxidant status induced by fluoride”.

Fluoride melts your antioxidant supplies faster than snow in summer, and antioxidants are vital for defending your skin. 

They’re critical for preventing blocked pores in particular, but antioxidants can also prevent acne from air pollution, excessive sunlight, cigarette smoke…

…and that’s ignoring their unique acne skills. By increasing your oxidative stress, you lose out on vitamin C’s lowered stress hormones and accelerated collagen production, for example.

 

The mayhem doesn’t end there

Fluoride prides itself on its hormone disruption – see the section on testosterone and fertility below. It can also strongly disrupt insulin, the most important hormone for acne. Study number three on inflammation found that “the chronic treatment with fluoride promoted… decrease in insulin sensitivity”. Essentially, your glycogen stores are less responsive to insulin arrives with energy. Bloodstream glucose bubbles upwards, causing acne by increasing 1) your skin’s oiliness, 2) dead skin cell turnover, and 3) bloodstream free radicals called AGEs.

Consequently, fluoride should always be avoided by diabetic or pre-diabetic people with acne, or indeed without acne.  

Finally, almost all fluoride we consume whether it’s in our toothpaste or in our drinking water is the worst type for acne you can get. Across nature, there are two main forms – sodium fluoride and calcium fluoride. Calcium fluoride remineralises human teeth just as effectively, but luckily, it is 1000 times less bioavailable and causes nowhere near the same damage. Japanese fluoridation officials have only ever used calcium fluoride, citing its greater safety in humans.

Sodium fluoride, meanwhile, is much cheaper, and that’s why the US authorities adore it. But in reality, they don’t add nature’s version. 90% of sodium fluoride added to drinking water is actually hydrofluorosilicic acid.

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That’s a waste product of not only China’s booming phosphate agricultural fertiliser industry, but also aluminium, steel, cement and nuclear weapons factories. For decades, industry leaders were scratching their heads over what to do with this toxic waste product. Add it to rivers, and it was toxic, bury it in the ground and it was toxic.

Then the solution came: dump hydrofluorosilicic acid in drinking water. In 1983, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) called it “an ideal environmental solution to a long-standing problem”.

The problem? Hydrofluorosilicic acid causes acne. It’s commonly contaminated with heavy metals like arsenic, lead and aluminium, all known to deplete acne-clearing antioxidants like glutathione as you detoxify them. Arsenic is particuarly villainous for acne patients because it dramatically accelerates your skin’s turnover of dead skin cells.

Today, hydrofluorosilicic acid is added to 40-50% of US drinking water and toothpaste. The manufacturing side is a walking contradiction; it’s popular because in a liquid form, rather than gas, spillages and workplace accidents are easier to avoid. Yet drinking it is apparently okay?

Hydrofluorosilicic acid can destroy eyes, burn flesh to the bone, and sear lungs so that victims drown in their own body fluid. It’s also one of the main ingredients of rat poison and cockroach powder. It’s mostly Chinese imported, but oddly, China refuses to fluoridate their own water supply. For acne, who knows what tricks hydrofluorosilicic acid has up its sleeves. See this no-nonsense industry report for the bare facts.

The conclusion is clear – fluoride is kryptonite for an aspiring clear skin maniac. 

After learning more about this supposedly “safe and healthy mineral” I’m redoubling my efforts to avoid it. Fluoride seemingly triggers an inflammatory acne-causing response at even low levels. It’s not surprising; we’re being spoon fed an agricultural waste chemical.

I strongly recommend that no matter your acne circumstances, you avoid fluoridated water supplies and grocery store dental products. The lion’s share of your intake will instantly vanish. Fluoridated water will still contaminate non-organic crop fields and therefore fruits and vegetables, but such traces won’t give you acne.

 

Fluoride – not just an acne villain

Even if pimples were a joke to you, I would still urge you to outlaw fluoride from your life. Perhaps you’re fatigued all the time, perhaps you’re mentally sluggish and not as sharp as you’d like, or fancy becoming a sexual tyrannosaurus. Excessive sodium fluoride (not calcium fluoride) has been linked to…

Impaired brain function – again, 3ppm of fluoride lowered IQ scores by 5 points, and 24 other studies have shown lowered IQs in children. Nine human studies link fluoride to lowered IQ scores at intakes of less than 3ppm (parts per million). 100 animal studies link fluoride to brain damage and a handful show impaired mental development of babies in the womb.

“Mental confusion, drowsiness and lassitude” was mentioned even in 1944. Fluoride can damage the hippocampus and increase the uptake of aluminium, which is linked to early onset Alzheimer’s disease, not to mention acne due to glutathione depletion. Like mercury, fluoride exposure is even linked to autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Thyroid damage – thyroid problems are running rampant in the USA. Just 3.5mg of sodium fluoride per day can reportedly cause altered thyroid activity, and the average American’s daily intake is 3mg (EPA statistics). Americans in heavily fluoridated areas often consume over 6mg.

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Then there’s iodine, needed alongside tyrosine to manufacture the hormones T3 and T4. Like iodine, fluoride is also a halide. Because it’s the strongest of the big four halides (the other two are bromide and chloride), fluoride can effortlessly displace your vital iodine and starve your thyroid of resources.

Furthermore, many Westerners aren’t eating enough iodine anyway. We get some from eggs, but it’s dire compared to Japan, where they eat copious quantities of seaweed and kelp every day.

If your thyroid is faulty, fluoride could be the culprit you’ve been searching for.

Reproductive havoc – one of fluoride’s most insidious powers is lowering testosterone levels. In this study, men living in high-fluoride water areas had 40% lower testosterone than those with clean-water. This and this study analysed men with skeletal fluorosis and both detected lacklustre testosterone levels.

The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will never admit that fluoride causes acne. Their age-old line is that dental fluorosis is real but all else is fictional. 

In Israel, it’s a different story; their Ministry of Health banned it back in 2014. They totally changed their minds, after first implementing the program back in 2002 to wild enthusiasm.

You might be terrified by some of the unbelievable truths about this common additive. But if you’re going to be scared of something, then fluoride is an excellent candidate.

Just search the internet and you’ll discover miraculous stories. People with thyroid difficulties claim to have got their lives back, after their energy levels came roaring back. If your sex drive is flagging, then the boost in testosterone could revitalise you.

 

The acne patient’s guide to avoiding fluoride

Avoiding all fluoride is nearly impossible, but avoiding most fluoride is a piece of cake.

Firstly, you have to stop using commercial dental products. Both toothpastes and mouthwashes are loaded with fluoride, not to mention titanium dioxide and triclosan where it’s not banned yet. Fluoride has minor enamel-strengthening properties, but it’s madness to say we need it.

A tooth-friendly diet makes fluoride redundant, and first and foremost is reducing your sugar intake. starving the bad bacteria like mutans streptococciin which wear down the enamel down in the first place.

Eating sugar as less than 10% of total calories puts cavities on the back foot, and for acne, a bonus will be extinguished inflammation. Grains like wheat and corn are also notoriously acidic, and contain a specific type called phytic acid which is notorious for eroding enamel. Wheat also causes inflammatory acne.

Grains and excess sugar consumption are by far the biggest enemies of blindingly white teeth. Nuts are also loaded with the wrong acids, but are tooth-friendly in moderation.  

A nutritionally varied diet of vegetables, herbs, spices, grass-fed meats and raw dairy will supply all sorts of building blocks for your teeth. Plant foods will also provide prebiotics to feed healthy mouth bacteria and keep the corrosive strains at bay.

Omega 3 fats are especially important; they’ve been shown to protect against cavities and gum disease. Deficiency is rampant, so feasting on salmon like a bear will work wonders. Omega 3 supplementation can also reduce acne by 42%.

Finally, there are plenty of natural and acne-friendly toothpastes you can use. My preferred option is to combine baking soda and coconut oil into a paste. Baking soda is strongly alkaline, and will thus neutralise any excess acids.

Coconut oil has anti-bacterial properties and also acts as a carrier to make the baking soda less abrasive to your enamel. I use this formula every day and my teeth are as healthy as ever.

Another strategy I’ve been using for about a year now is so-called “oil pulling”, an ancient form of mouth washing. What you do is put a table spoon of coconut oil in your mouth, wait for it to melt, and swish it thoroughly around for 15-20 minutes. Gradually, the antibacterial powers permeate every corner of your mouth, leaving you with an excellent fresh feeling.

If you google “oil pulling” then you might learn that the rebalancing properties can magically spread to your whole body and heal autoimmune diseases, migraines, and acne alike. That’s nonsense, but it’s definitely great for your teeth, with no chemical aftertaste too.

My favoured online brand is this Viva Labs Finest Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, and you can buy Dr Oetker’s bicarbonate of soda from a store near you.

Also promising are natural foods like 85% cocoa dark chocolate. In this study, the caffeine-related cocoa stimulant theobromine increased the size of apatite crystals, a key mineral in your enamel. Just remember, wherever you are, to dodge the sugar.

The second big strategy is to dodge fluoridated drinking water and thankfully, google is packed with facts about different areas. 

In 2012, 65% of US citizens received fluoridated water. 10% of the UK receives fluoride, and Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Australia are some other countries receiving it. It’s banned in most of Europe including Austria, Belgium, Sweden and Finland.

If your water is fluoridated, then get a tap filter! This Home Master TMAFC Reverse Osmosis Water is a onetime purchase, and furthermore, dirty tap water is full of other acne-causing contaminants. You’ll also avoid arsenic, mercury, herbicides, and inflammatory atrazine.

Alternatively you could buy bottled water. Many plastic water bottles contain phthalates, which leach into the water, but properly sourced spring water will at least be missing fluoride. The ultimate acne-clearing option is glass bottled spring water, if your bank account is bursting.

In a few countries, certain brands of table salt are fluoridated too, including France, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic.

 

Conclusion

Fluoride is the bogeyman of just about every illness in the mystical health community. You see some especially insane claims about awakening your third eye and gaining unheard of vision, insight and clarity into life. Or increasing your generation of the psychoactive compound DMT and entering a constant psychedelic state.

It would be nice if all that was true and I’ll be monitoring whether I start hallucinating, but the reality is that there’s not a shred of evidence. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet about fluoride.

Nevertheless, there is very clear scientific evidence that fluoride affects the two main factors behind acne. It can deplete your antioxidants and add to your inflammatory burden substantially. Seeing as inflammation is flying into our bodies left right and centre these days (trans-fats, sugar, pesticides, BPA, phthalates in plastic), the big sources like drinking water and toothpaste are an open goal.

You might not clear your acne overnight, but nevertheless, but it’s another strategy for your acne-clearing war chest. 

NEXT: forget creams and moisturisers – discover the ultimate acne-clearing diet

 

 

Thanks for reading!