Something for all you tea drinkers...Fluoride

medicalxpress.com...
QUOTE:
"People may be drinking excessive volumes of tea in addition to other dietary sources of fluoride and may not realise these potential health implications. Indeed, there have been cases, in both the UK and the USA, of skeletal fluorosis in individuals who drank more than the average amount of economy tea." added Ms Chan.

"All tea products should be considered as a main source of fluoride in the diet, and we would urge supermarkets and manufacturers of tea to consider stating fluoride concentration as part of the nutritional information found on food packaging." END QUOTE:
medicalxpress.com...

(HealthDay)—Here's a cautionary tale about the value of moderation. A case study reported in the March 21 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine shows how habitually drinking an extreme form of highly concentrated tea over almost 20 years created a hard-to-diagnose case of severe bone damage in a 47-year-old woman.

www.sciencedirect.com...

Fluoride concentrations in UK tea, including the leading supermarket economy labelled products, were determined. Fluoride ranged from 93 to 820 mg/kg in the products and 0.43 to 8.85 mg/L in the infusions. The UK supermarket economy teas contained elevated fluoride, ranging from 3.60 to 7.96 mg/L in a 2 minute brewing infusion, comparable to Chinese brick tea, indicating the use of mature leaves in their manufacture. Considering the dietary reference intake (DRI) of 4 mg/day of fluoride for an adult consuming 1 L of tea, prepared from an economy tea, containing 6.0 mg/L fluoride, 75–120% of the DRI fluoride is available for absorption by the human system in the presence of food, increasing to 150% when fasting. Excess fluoride in the diet can lead to detrimental health effects such as fluorosis of the teeth and skeletal fluorosis and consuming economy branded tea will lead to exposure.

I did not know that but I am not a habitual tea drinker...There is a very old saying that goes something like, "all things in moderation".

reply to post by 727Sky


I read through most of it and could not find where they said if they were adding the fluoride or if it was naturally there in the tea. I also did a word search for calcium and fluoride and did not come up with anything other than a mention of calcification of the bones which sounds like symptoms of sodium fluoride.

Please forgive me if I missed it, I just can't find it.

I would not be too worried about calcium fluoride, but sodium fluoride is poison.

Let me read through it all properly and then post my final opinion on this...I drink tea!

Also it's good to keep in mind that different types of tea have different levels of fluoride, for example, i drink white tea which has the lowest amount of fluoride of any tea but it has the highest amount of antioxidants which makes it the best tea to drink for health benefits.

Green tea also contains less fluoride than black tea, but has more than white tea and less antioxidants than white tea.

I would also try to find organic white tea where possible in loose leaf form from a good source, overworking the soil will produce more fluoride in the plant as it's devoid of nutrient, pre-packaged boxed tea in the supermarket is the worst.

Tea drinking doesn't seem to have harmed the Japanese or the Chinese.

The woman in question abused the substance. Anything in excess will have a negative impact.

reply to post by Corruption Exposed


phys.org...

"When we tested the patients' tea brands using a traditional method, we found the fluoride concentrations to be very low, so we wondered if that method was detecting all of the fluoride," Whitford said, noting that the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, creates a quandary when measuring fluoride. Unique among other plants, it accumulates huge concentrations of fluoride and aluminum in its leaves - each mineral ranges from 600 to more than 1,000 milligrams per kilogram of leaves. When the leaves are brewed for tea, some of the minerals leach into the beverage.

Most published studies about black tea traditionally have used a method of measuring fluoride that doesn't account for the amount that combines with aluminum to form insoluble aluminum fluoride, which is not detected by the fluoride electrode. Whitford compared that method with a diffusion method, which breaks the aluminum-fluoride bond so that all fluoride in the tea samples can be extracted and measured.

phys.org... Scientist urge lower limits for Flouride in drinking water

phys.org...

British researchers say consuming tea is healthier than drinking water not only for hydration but for other benefits. They recommend drinking three or more cups of tea a day, the BBC reports

I would think there are British who would rather die than give up there tea....Again all things in moderation...

Tea is my beverage of choice, but being an American - I drink it iced rather than hot. All told I drink about 96 -130 ounces of it each day and have for about 30 years. It seemed the healthier choice when compared to most beverages available ( Carbonated soft drinks, beer, etc ).

Now I am going to have to do some research to see if it might be time to alter my habits - though after thirty years I think the damage is done.

All I drink is tea,but you have to drink a massive amount of tea to get fluorosis .
Like over 15 cups a day .
I drink maybe two cups ,and have done so since I'm 16 years old . Ie,over 30 years .
I have no issues .

I actually judge the quality of the tea by the amount of fluoride I taste in it. It's easy to notice if you've been drinking non fluoridated water for a while. Brick black tea can be the worst. Higher quality black tea is fine.

reply to post by Hefficide


You have to drink massive amounts to get fluorosis . I've only heard of one case,and she drank 17 cups a day .
Also ,the UK would have 1000s of cases of it,if this were a true issue ,wether their water is fluoridated or not ..

reply to post by suz62


I have and do live in Asia..Their teas (and soups for that matter) have the barest hint of a flavored tea and at times if the light is not just right your nice tea looks like water....Not the same thing and the Brits or yanks tea color of choice...

Originally posted by Hefficide

Tea is my beverage of choice, but being an American - I drink it iced rather than hot. All told I drink about 96 -130 ounces of it each day and have for about 30 years. It seemed the healthier choice when compared to most beverages available ( Carbonated soft drinks, beer, etc ).

Now I am going to have to do some research to see if it might be time to alter my habits - though after thirty years I think the damage is done.

I do the same thing Heff only my tea drinking is usually with a steak at my favorite steak house...otherwise I have drank filtered water for most of the last 30 or 40 years? I am not to concerned one way or the other I just thought these findings were interesting....Oh and I am old with all my teeth still in my mouth!! Ta Da!

reply to post by raiden12

In my country,South Africa we have a type of natural herbal tea called Rooibos(Redbush) tea which is drunk as extensively and commonly as normal Ceylon tea,its a national institution really,and a massive amount of people prefer it to Ceylon.Its extremely healthy and has a delicious natural sweet honey-ish flavor.It is widely used in skin preparations,some local skincare companies have whole product ranges using it as chief ingredient.It is used by a large part of the population as an aid to breastmilk/formula as baby sustenance,my own youngest daughters drank a small lake of it when she was a babe+toddler,we used to call her 2gun-Charlie as she toddled around usually armed with 2 bottles of her beloved Rooibos tea.

If its never been widely imported and distributed in America there is an opportunity for a massive market to be tapped,if I had any money whatsoever to start a fair sized business,that would have been an intelligent choice.I'm not by my pc now but will provide a link later,if anyone wants to,they could just google eg Freshpak Rooibos Tea.Or just Rooibos herbal.It is,quite frankly,along with garlic,one of The healthiest+most health-promoting substances on the planet.

Milk
I remember reading somewhere that something in milk ( possibly the calcium ) may go a long way to countering the flouride in tea
Infact it was a comment by Dr Paul the renouned anti flouridation campaigner in one of his presentations

Double post

But to make use of space
Flouride added to school children's milk ??
www.independent.co.uk...
articles.mercola.com...

reply to post by 727Sky


Great!! Now it's in tea! I love Tea! Please say it's not in coffee, as I am a habitual drinker! Well I can live without tea, but coffee?? UGH!

reply to post by 727Sky


Tea plants bioaccumulate vast amounts of fluoride when fluoride is present. In the vicinity of tea plants, the fluoride transport mechanism is typically environmental water. Excess fluoride in water is most commonly from environmental contamination from industrial sources. I have been buying Oothu green tea from Choice Organic because it is grown in an environmental reserve area and some of its profits support conservation efforts of groups established by Jane Goodall. Thanks for the mention of white tea ... I will check it out.

reply to post by Raxoxane


Thanks for the info on rooibos. I will give it a shot.

reply to post by Raxoxane


We actually have quite a lot of rooibos here . It's usually flavored .
Vanilla rooibos ,caramel rooibos.
It's not as popular as regular black tea in bags here,but its a staple in all the tea salons we have .
I have even made kombucha with it .
On websites,its sometimes listed as a red tea.

They do
Black
Green
White
Red
And now;
Purple tea ,when they list them in categories .

I've had purple tea btw . It's not bad ,but you drink it like an expensive green Chinese tea ,with multiple brewings .

reply to post by 727Sky

buy tea from a local tea shop, organic if possible! problem solved (and the tea is incredible. a whole world of difference from store bought)

British researchers say consuming tea is healthier than drinking water

lol, of course. typical brits. though i do agree tea is amazing.