The Effects Of Fluoride On The Thyroid Gland by Dr. Barry Durrant-Peatfield MBBS
LRCP MRCS
Medical Advisor to Thyroid UK
September 9, 2004
There is a daunting amount of research
studies showing that the widely acclaimed benefits on fluoride
dental health are more imagined than real. My main concern
however, is the effect of sustained fluoride intake on general
health. Again, there is a huge body of research literature on
this subject, freely available and in the public domain.
But this body of work was not considered by the York Review
when their remit was changed from "Studies of the effects of
fluoride on health" to "Studies on the effects of fluoridated
water on health." It is clearly evident that it was not
considered by the BMA (Britsh Medical Association), British
Dental Association (BDA), BFS (British Fluoridation Society)
and FPHM, (Faculty for Public Health and Medicine) since they
all insist, as in the briefing paper to Members of Parliament
- that fluoridation is safe and non-injurious to health.
This is a public disgrace, I will now show by reviewing the
damaging effects of fluoridation, with special reference to
thyroid illness.
It has been known since the latter part of the 19th century
that certain communities, notably in Argentina, India and
Turkey were chronically ill, with premature ageing, arthritis,
mental retardation, and infertility; and high levels of
natural fluorides in the water were responsible. Not only was
it clear that the fluoride was having a general effect on the
health of the community, but in the early 1920s Goldemberg,
working in Argentina showed that fluoride was displacing
iodine; thus compounding the damage and rendering the
community also hypothyroid from iodine deficiency.
Highly damaging to the thyroid gland
This was the basis of the research in the 1930s of May, Litzka,
Gorlitzer von Mundy, who used fluoride preparations to treat
over-active thyroid illness. Their patients either drank
fluoridated water, swallowed fluoride pills or were bathed in
fluoridated bath water; and their thyroid function was as a
result, greatly depressed. The use in 1937 of fluorotyrosine
for this purpose showed how effective this treatment was; but
the effectiveness was difficult to predict and many patients
suffered total thyroid loss. So it was given a new role and
received a new name, Pardinon. It was marketed not for
over-active thyroid disease but as a pesticide. (Note the
manufacturer of fluorotyrosine was IG Farben who also made
sarin, a gas used in World War II).
This bit of history illustrates the fact that fluorides are
dangerous in general and in particular highly damaging to the
thyroid gland, a matter to which I shall return shortly. While
it is unlikely that it will be disputed that fluorides are
toxic - let us be reminded that they are Schedule 2 Poisons
under the Poisons Act 1972, the matter in dispute is the level
of toxicity attributable to given amounts; in today's context
the degree of damage caused by given concentrations in the
water supply. While admitting its toxicity, proponents rely on
the fact that it is diluted and therefore, it is claimed,
unlikely to have deleterious effects.
They could not be more mistaken
It seems to me that we must be aware of how fluoride does its
damage. It is an enzyme poison. Enzymes are complex protein
compounds that vastly speed up biological chemical reactions
while themselves remaining unchanged. As we speak, there
occurs in all of us a vast multitude of these reactions to
maintain life and produce the energy to sustain it. The chains
of amino acids that make up these complex proteins are linked
by simple compounds called amides; and it is with these that
fluorine molecules react, splitting and distorting them, thus
damaging the enzymes and their activity. Let it be said at
once, this effect can occur at extraordinary low
concentrations; even lower than the one part per million which
is the dilution proposed for fluoridation in our water supply.
The body can only eliminate half
Moreover, fluorides are cumulative and build up steadily with
ingestion of fluoride from all sources, which include not just
water but the air we breathe and the food we eat. The use of
fluoride toothpaste in dental hygiene and the coating of teeth
are further sources of substantial levels of fluoride intake.
The body can only eliminate half of the total intake, which
means that the older you are the more fluoride will have
accumulated in your body. Inevitably this means the ageing
population is particularly targeted. And even worse for the
very young there is a major element of risk in baby formula
made with fluoridated water. The extreme sensitivity of the
very young to fluoride toxicity makes this unacceptable. Since
there are so many sources of fluoride in our everyday living,
it will prove impossible to maintain an average level of 1ppm
as is suggested.
What is the result of these toxic effects?
First the immune system. The distortion of protein structure
causes the immune proteins to fail to recognise body proteins,
and so instigate an attack on them, which is Autoimmune
Disease. Autoimmune diseases constitute a body of disease
processes troubling many thousands of people: Rheumatoid
Arthritis, Systemic Lupus Erythematosis, Asthma and Systemic
Sclerosis are examples; but in my particular context today,
thyroid antibodies will be produced which will cause
Thyroiditis resulting in the common hypothyroid disease,
Hashimoto's Disease and the hyperthyroidism of Graves'
Disease.
Musculo Skeletal damage results further from the enzyme toxic
effect; the collagen tissue of which muscles, tendons,
ligaments and bones are made, is damaged. Rheumatoid illness,
osteoporosis and deformation of bones inevitably follow. This
toxic effect extends to the ameloblasts making tooth enamel,
which is consequently weakened and then made brittle; and its
visible appearance is, of course, dental fluorosis.
The enzyme poison effect extends to our genes; DNA cannot
repair itself, and chromosomes are damaged. Work at the
University of Missouri showed genital damage, targeting
ovaries and testes. Also affected is inter uterine growth and
development of the foetus, especially the nervous system.
Increased incidence of Down's Syndrome has been documented.
Fluorides are mutagenic. That is, they can cause the
uncontrolled proliferation of cells we call cancer. This
applies to cancer anywhere in the body; but bones are
particularly picked out. The incidence of osteosarcoma in a
study reporting in 1991 showed an unbelievable 50% increase. A
report in 1955 in the New England Journal of Medicine showed a
400% increase in cancer of the thyroid in San Francisco during
the period their water was fluoridated.
My particular concern is the effect of fluorides on the
thyroid gland
Perhaps I may remind you about thyroid disease. The thyroid
gland produces hormones which control our metabolism - the
rate at which we burn our fuel. Deficiency is relatively
common, much more than is generally accepted by many medical
authorities: a figure of 1:4 or 1:3 by mid life is more
likely. The illness is insidious in its onset and progression.
People become tired, cold, overweight, depressed, constipated;
they suffer arthritis, hair loss, infertility, atherosclerosis
and chronic illness. Sadly, it is poorly diagnosed and poorly
managed by very many doctors in this country.
What concerns me so deeply is that in concentrations as low as
1ppm, fluorides damage the thyroid system on 4 levels.
1. The enzyme manufacture of thyroid hormones within the
thyroid gland itself. The process by which iodine is attached
to the amino acid tyrosine and converted to the two
significant thyroid hormones, thyroxine (T4) and liothyronine
(T3), is slowed.
2. The stimulation of certain G proteins from the toxic effect
of fluoride (whose function is to govern uptake of substances
into each of the cells of the body), has the effect of
switching off the uptake into the cell of the active thyroid
hormone.
3. The thyroid control mechanism is compromised. The thyroid
stimulating hormone output from the pituitary gland is
inhibited by fluoride, thus reducing thyroid output of thyroid
hormones.
4. Fluoride competes for the receptor sites on the thyroid
gland which respond to the thyroid stimulating hormone; so
that less of this hormone reaches the thyroid gland and so
less thyroid hormone is manufactured.
These damaging effects, all of which occur with small
concentrations of fluoride, have obvious and easily
identifiable effects on thyroid status. The running down of
thyroid hormone means a slow slide into hypothyroidism.
Already the incidence of hypothyroidism is increasing as a
result of other environmental toxins and pollutions together
with wide spread nutritional deficiencies.
141 million Europeans are at risk
One further factor should give us deep anxiety. Professor Hume
of Dundee, in his paper given earlier this year to the
Novartis Foundation, pointed out that iodine deficiency is
growing worldwide. There are 141 million Europeans are at
risk; only 5 European countries are iodine sufficient. UK now
falls into the marginal and focal category. Professor Hume
recently produced figures to show that 40% of pregnant women
in the Tayside region of Scotland were deficient by at least
half of the iodine required for a normal pregnancy. A
relatively high level of missing, decayed, filled teeth was
noted in this non-fluoridated area, suggesting that the iodine
deficiency was causing early hypothyroidism which interferes
with the health of teeth. Dare one speculate on the result of
now fluoridating the water?
Displaces iodine in the body
These figures would be worrying enough, since they mean that
iodine deficiency, which results in hypothyroidism (thyroid
hormone cannot be manufactured without iodine) is likely to
affect huge numbers of people. What makes it infinitely worse,
is that fluorine, being a halogen (chemically related to
iodine), but very much more active, displaces iodine. So that
the uptake of iodine is compromised by the ejection, as it
were, of the iodine by fluorine. To condemn the entire
population, already having marginal levels of iodine, to
inevitable progressive failure of their thyroid system by
fluoridating the water, borders on criminal lunacy.
I would like to place a scenario in front of those colleagues
who favour fluoridation. A new pill is marketed. Some trials
not all together satisfactory, nevertheless, show a striking
improvement in dental caries. Unfortunately, it has been found
to be thyrotoxic, mutagenic, immunosuppressive, cause
arthritis and infertility in comparatively small doses over a
relatively short period of time.
Do you think it should be marketed?
Fluoridation of the nation's water supply will do little for
our dental health; but will have catastrophic effects on our
general health. We cannot, must not, dare not, subject our
nation to this appalling risk.
Dr Barry Durrant-Peatfield
obtained his Medical degrees in 1960 at Guy's Hospital London.
He left the NHS in 1980 to specialise in thyroid illnesses
drawing inspiration from the work of infamous Dr Broda Barnes,
at the Foundation that bears his name, Connecticut, USA. He
has been a medical practitioner for over forty years
specialising in metabolic disorders during which time he
became a leading authority in the UK for thyroid and adrenal
management. For over twenty years he also ran a successful
private clinic and became a nation-wide leading authority on
thyroid and adrenal dysfunction, but clashed with
establishment medicine in the management of thyroid illness.
He is the author of The Great Thyroid Scandal (see opposite
page), he currently lectures at nutritional colleges in London
as well as conducting his own teaching seminars. Barry will
shortly be opening a diagnostic clinic in the UK for thyroid
and adrenal disorders where he will provide advice on
diagnosis and treatment with special interests in nutritional
aspects.
