Fluoride and Bone Health

Fluoride is sold as good for the teeth, but it is really a toxin. And the story of osteoporosis and bones is another similar deception. This chapter is based on the work of A Midwestern Doctor.

Where fluoride came from

Fluoride was a toxic industrial waste that had to be disposed of somehow. Because it increases bone density, they used it as an excuse to say it "protected the teeth." And they ended up putting it in the water, in part for national security: fluoride was needed to produce the atomic bomb.

Fluoride does harm

It increases bone density, yes, but it forms brittle bone that breaks more easily (it has been linked to osteomalacia and more fractures). It also stains and damages the teeth, affects the thyroid and the brain (it lowers children's IQ). And the most dangerous of all is fluoride toothpaste, because under the tongue it is absorbed extremely fast. Remember: fluoride does not cure cavities, it causes them.

How to avoid it

From water, only a reverse-osmosis filter removes it well. Do not use fluoride toothpaste or mouthwash, and avoid the dentist's fluoride treatments. Use sea salt (it has no fluoride) and put a filter on the shower.

Truly strong bones

A healthy bone is not just dense: it is elastic, it bends a little and does not break. That is why the medicines that only raise density (the bisphosphonates) form dense but brittle bones, and bring horrible effects, like the death of the jawbone. Also, the famous density test (DEXA) is a deception: two out of three fractures happen in people whose bones are not "porous" according to that test.

For truly strong bones: move and carry weight, and get sun. Care for your hormones. Take your minerals, especially magnesium, vitamin K2 and vitamin D3. Do not block stomach acid (those pills raise the risk of fracture a lot). And avoid what robs bone: steroids, antidepressants, sodas and toxins.

Boron: the mineral almost nobody talks about

When bones are discussed there is one mineral that almost never appears on the list: boron. It has no recommended daily dose and is still classified as a "non-essential" mineral, because to enter that category you have to demonstrate that some specific enzyme depends on it. Its best known and cheapest form is borax, or sodium tetraborate: the same box sold in the supermarket as a laundry booster. That is why this whole subject circulates under the name of borax rather than that of the mineral.

Across the studies that have been done on it, in animals and in people, effects are attributed to it in nine areas: brain function (manual dexterity, attention, short- and long-term memory); bone formation and mineralization; the methylation cycle and the production of SAM-e; the metabolism of the steroid hormones (testosterone, estradiol and vitamin D); immune function and T-cell populations; prostate cancer risk and PSA levels; fat metabolism; blood glucose regulation; and mitochondrial function and thermogenesis. The bone part and the vitamin D part are what concern us in this chapter.

The gap between what people eat and what was studied

The average diet in the United States provides about 1.0 to 1.35 mg of boron a day, and the supplements sold carry from 3 to 10 mg. The official upper limit is 20 mg a day: it was set by the Institute of Medicine in 2001 from reproductive toxicity studies in rats and rabbits, dividing by an uncertainty factor of around 100 (ten for the difference between species and ten for the difference between individuals).

The Curious Outlier article takes the doses that turned out to be effective in those animal studies and converts them to human equivalent doses with the FDA's body-surface-area formula. It arrives at between 9.6 and 113.5 mg a day depending on the body system, with a median of 51.1 mg. And from there comes its central point: the 20 mg limit falls below the human equivalent dose in eight of the nine systems analyzed. Put another way, this is between seven and a hundred and thirteen times what most people eat in a day.

Be careful how those numbers are read: they are conversions calculated from animal studies, not doses tested in people.

Why nobody settles it

The author himself clarifies that he does not see a conspiracy, but a problem of structure. Boron cannot be patented, so there is nobody to fund a dosing study. Without essential-nutrient status and without a recommended dose, there is no regulatory obligation to find out either. And the researchers who do understand what their own data say cannot recommend above the official limit without exposing themselves. What they do, he says, is elegant: they publish the animals' mg/kg data in full detail and leave the conversion to the attentive reader. The leading researcher on the subject, Dr. Forrest Nielsen, of the United States Department of Agriculture, has been at this for four decades and puts it this way: boron is of greater practical nutritional importance than is recognized today.

What still does not exist

There are no studies in people that raise the dose in steps (10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 mg and beyond), nor stratified by body weight, nor comparing how boron moves through the human body against the rodent's, nor long-term safety data outside the reproductive area. In the author's words: none of that research exists, and none of it is funded at a scale that would serve. That is why the article gives no borax protocol and no dose, and neither does this chapter: if you are interested in going above the range the supplements carry, do it accompanied by somebody who is monitoring you — as I do, taking 100 mg a day.

To learn more (sources in English)

This chapter is based on articles by A Midwestern Doctor, which cite many studies.

The section on boron comes from a separate article, by Curious Outlier (The Curious Substack).

How modern medicine made your bones brittle (fluoride and bones): https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/how-modern-medicine-made-your-bones

Exposing the great osteoporosis scam: https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/exposing-the-great-osteoporosis-scam

The borax "conspiracy," solved — it is not what you think (boron and its dose): https://curioushumanproductions.substack.com/p/the-borax-conspiracy-solved-its-not