Chemical Forums
Specialty Chemistry Forums => Citizen Chemist => Topic started by: Eripiomundus on November 25, 2014, 12:58:12 AM
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I found a forum post saying that Ca2+ would bind F- in a biologically inactive form. They didn't mention the compound name, but it would have to be CaF2, which is either detrimental or harmless when ingested depending on where you look.
So, to be safe, I looked for another way to get rid of fluoride ions from drinking water, and was told that Borax (disodium tetraborate decahydrate, Na2B4O7.10H2O) would do the trick. I'm not far enough along in chemistry to figure out how this chemical would react with F- though (just starting out). Would someone please help me?
I'm guessing you'd end up with NaF and the borate would bond with something else in water? Some other contaminant maybe? Also, can someone please tell be whether the products of this reaction (if any) would react with the HCl in the stomach, and what the products would be?
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If anything, after precipitation of fluoride, you want to filter the solids out. Or at least wait till they settle down.
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Calcium or better Barium give precipitate of the flouride. Borax do nothing. Why asked what HCl do in stomach. Large amount of flourides are poison. Barium as well. As already mentioned precipitate you have to filter.
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Of course! Great answer.
I was asking about the HCl because stomach acid is HCl, and I wanted to know whether the potential products of F- and borax would react with the HCl to produce something harmful upon ingestion.
Thanks for the responses.
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If you have soluble fluorides HCl creates hydrogen fluoride, what is very poison. Borax itself is some poison no need for HCl.
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Fluoride compounds of different types are added to civilian water supplies, but they all ionise into F- in aqueous solution. So, if what you say is true, and fluoride reacts with HCl to produce hydrogen fluoride, why is it being put in our water supply? Pretty scary.
With the Borax I'm getting mixed information. According to the Material Safety Data Sheet it has a lower lethal dose (for 50% of subjects - LD50) than table salt. They cite studies that link reproductive defects in mice, but the amounts used to achieve these results are enormous. Probably if you took any substance to the same degree of excess it would lead to at least as serious a set of side effects.
On the other hand there are a few anecdotal reports out there, and not one of them is disparaging.
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@Eripiomundus
What is the ppm in civilian water supplies of fluoride compounds?
What is the ppm in toothpaste of fluoride compounds?
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1 part per million in the water. 1000 ppm in toothpaste (average).
So H2O molecular weight = (2+16 = 18) grams per mol.
18/6.02*1023 = 2.99*10-23 grams per molecule.
1,000,000 * 2.99*10-23 = 2.99*(10-17) grams of water per Fluoride ion.
The average man needs around 2800mL water per day, and a mL of pure water weighs 1g.
2800/(2.99*10-17) = 9.36*1019 fluoride ions consumed per day.
Fluoride ion mass = 19, so:
19/(6.02*1023)*9.36*1019 = 2.954*10-3 grams of Fluoride per day. (can someone check my calculations please - I'm pretty new to chemistry).
2.9mg doesn't seem like much I guess. The recommended dosage is listed here http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002420.htm (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002420.htm) as being 3-4mg a day for an adult human.
I've read that fluorides bioaccumulate, mainly due to the F ion's proclivity for binding to the calcium in bones. Also, it might be worth noting that in countries where drinking water is fluoridated there is a feedback mechanism at play. Not only do you get it in your water, you get it through the plants that are watered with it, the food products using water in processing, the beverages that use water as an additive (like Coke and reconstituted orange juice).
There are many, many, sources that claim fluoride is a poison - it used to be used in rat poison, for instance, and rats are used in medical research because their systems often behave similarly to ours. The Nazis apparently used it in their concentration camps as a means of making people more compliant and less likely to cause trouble. It's hard to know whose information to trust really.
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Some reading to help understand the subject
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation
From the WIKI article
In 1999 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed water fluoridation as one of the ten great public health achievements of the 20th century;
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No offence, but I don't think Wikipedia is a reliable enough source to trust your health to.
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I don't think Wikipedia is a reliable enough source to trust your health to
I suppose one could have that opinion
But the
111 Citations at the end are of note
For instance
CDC. Ten great public health achievements—United States, 1900–1999. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 1999;48(12):241–3. PMID 10220250. Reprinted in: JAMA. 1999;281(16):1481. doi:10.1001/jama.281.16.1481. PMID 10227303.
I go to WIKI for the summary
I go to the citations for the facts
Additionally, It is my impression that members of organizations like American Chemistry Society have committed to supporting the integrity of WIKI.
see
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=32165.0
So no offense taken
By the way, I think you will find commercially available systems to remove fluoridation from your water, if you really think there is a need.
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I do the same, I have to admit (look up the wikipage and go from there).
You're right about the commercial methods. There are filters, but they're expensive, and I thought making Ca+ ions from egg shells and vinegar would be a cheap way to go about it for the time being.
Thanks for the comments.
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There are many, many, sources that claim fluoride is a poison
No contradiction here. It is a dose that makes a poison. It is quite common that substances that are necessary in small amounts are dangerous in large amounts.
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Sorry. Just to clarify, many of the sources claim it to be a poison even in small doses, being bio-accumulative. It's frustratingly hard to get a clear picture. I've never heard of anyone, ever, being diagnosed with a fluoride deficiency. Phosphate deficiency yes, iron, potassium, calcium, magnesium, selenium, zinc and so on... all yes. But no fluorine deficiency. Studies indicate drinking it doesn't even help your teeth. Only topical administration protects dental enamel, and only partially. A recent Harvard university study linked it to lower IQs. Yet any government source will tell you A) it is good for your teeth, and B) is necessary for your health.
I've been looking into nutrition lately, and it's a minefield of contradictory information, so I made the decision to assume the conditions in which man evolved are the same that promote good health. When we were cave men we didn't need fluoridated water. If we needed it at all we got fluorides from our diet. As for teeth - look at the research by Weston A Price showing that people still living a lifestyle as close to the hunter/gatherer one as possible have immaculate teeth. I just can't help asking "why fluoridate? What is the point of it?" There seems no clear benefit in any way, and a lot of concern over the dangers. Would so many people really get so concerned over nothing?
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Would so many people really get so concerned over nothing?
Sadly, the answer is - yes (which is not intended to mean I am for or against fluoridation). Think anti vaccers.
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Too much of any good thing can be a toxin. This goes for fouride probably more then other substances. However, it is a nessasary element for all life.
We generally can get all the fouride we need from the food we eat, but in some cases, depending on where you live, you can become deficient (just like iodine, which is now supplemented as iodized salt). The tiny amount of added fouride is not enough to be toxic in water, and just don't swallow toothpaste.
As for it making HF (aq), that wont make any differance.
CaF + H3O+ + Cl- :lequil: Ca2+ + 2 Cl- + HF +H2O. This will not happen enough to be even slightly toxic.
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When we were cave men we didn't need fluoridated water.
When we were cave men we didn't "need" penicillin. Are you ready to give up antibiotics?
When we were cave men, the life expectancy was probably about 30-35. I don't think "when we were cave men" is a very good argument for making any decision about your health.
This of course doesn't mean squat about whether you SHOULD use fluoride. But it does mean that this argument isn't a good reason why you SHOULD NOT use it.
Man, people sure are ticklish about fluoride in their water, though. I've never quite figured out why. Certainly there are better things to believe in government conspiracies about, right? There is almost overwhelming evidence that fluoride helps prevent cavities. Almost no serious dental professional or scientist or epidemiologist that I've seen has a contrary opinion. Anti-fluoride campaigns are widely endorsed by spurious snake-oil salesmen around the internet - which of course isn't proof that fluoride is good for you, or that's it isn't harmful, but it certainly should make you think twice about the motivations of people who are trying to convince you that fluoride is bad. The evidence to suggest fluoride is toxic at normally encountered concentrations is flimsy at best.
I'm no true expert on the primary literature, but if the CDC, WHO, ADA, Health Canada, and so on all hail water fluoridation as one of the most remarkable and effective health initiatives of the 20th century, I'm willing to jump on the bandwagon. Your alternative is believing in a massive conspiracy by virtually every dentist in the world, to say nothing of scientists, government agencies, and other health-care professionals - in which case, no amount of writing about the subject here is likely to convince you anyway.
My two cents.
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When I said "when we were cavemen we didn't need fluoridated water", I should have been clearer. It was a sloppy description. What I meant was that, since man evolved in response to environmental conditions, and ionic fluorides in water were not amongst them (they received fluorides as compounds through food sources with negligible amounts in potable water supplies - excepting rare high concentration deposits), it seems reasonable to presume that ingestion of ionic fluoride, as opposed to fluoride compounds found in food sources, is not necessary for the maintenance of normal health (as things like calcium and iron are, for instance).
Your mention of penicillin is straying a little far from the context I think. I'm not referring to the modern advent of chemicals that can restore the health of someone seriously ill, I'm talking about evolutionarily derived daily nutritional requirements, established in response to eons of environmental pressure. Those pressures may have radically changed in the last five thousand years, but our evolved biological mechanics don't change as radically. Hence what was good nutrition for a pre-sapiens hominid is still good for us today. That is not to say that civilisation has failed to confer survival benefit. It definitely has, but the basic nutritional requirements of a human have not changed.
Your comparison of the lifespans of our ancestors to our own is a little misleading I think. The ancestors of man had myriad obstacles to overcome in order to survive. Life was hard: predation, bacterial/fungal/viral infection/infestation, exposure to weather extremes, poisons/bites/stings, dehydration/drought, flood, exposure, higher risk of physical injury due to increased quantity and quality of activity, fire, sickness, starvation... It is almost meaningless to compare lifespans unless you incorporate the contributing factors.
The rate of disease has increased concurrently with the rise of civilisation, owing to increases in population density allowing for the rapid dissemination of pathogens, so the advent of penicillin has probably had more effect on modern health than it would have in past epochs where the spread of pathogens was contained by larger distances between, and smaller groupings of, potential hosts.
It's easy to label something a 'conspiracy theory', and thereby instantly detract from its legitimacy, but your comment that, since the CDC, WHO, ADA... hail fluoridation as a miracle health initiative you are willing to jump on the bandwagon, strikes me as exactly the type of mob mentality your post denounces. You basically say: X an Y say fluoride is ok. I think they're credible, I'm with them. You haven't taken the time to research it for yourself, yet feel vindicated in extolling an authoritative pronouncement. This is the same force that gathers momentum to a conspiracy theory.
I've read reports from both sides, and there are, contrary to what you seem to believe, very provocative arguments against fluoridation from well respected organisations (Harvard university, for instance). You mention that there is 'overwhelming evidence' providing for the beneficial role of fluoride in dental maintenance, but I've looked (previously), and these are very limited studies in scope. The only beneficial evidence relates to topical administration, and even these findings are relatively weak. Look into the dental benefits of increased intakes of vitamins A, D and K, and you will find results for dental maintenance that overshadow those of fluoride by a significant margin. Almost all governmental information pertaining to health benefits of fluoride are simple varnish. They contain no substance, no hard evidence, and even fall short of what I would label 'pop-science'.
Every piece of what I would call thorough research on the topic says that topical administration has dental benefit while ingested fluoride has none, plays no biological role and, given its bio-accumulative nature, poses a risk to health under sustained daily exposure.
I'm not saying I believe fluoride to be the monster some claim it is, but the sheer bulk of concern provoked me to look into, and I have to say that there seems a compelling argument there.
Thanks for your comments though.