
Water Fluoridation Linked to Higher ADHD Rates - suprgeek
http://www.newsweek.com/water-fluoridation-linked-higher-adhd-rates-312748/
======
fl0wenol
The most interesting tidbit in the article was this:

 _About 90 percent of the fluoride that is added to the water takes the form
not of pharmaceutical grade sodium fluoride but ... fluorosilicic acid ...
This material is a byproduct of phosphate fertilizer manufacturing ... several
studies have suggested that this form of fluoride can leach lead from pipes.
...other work shows that children in fluoridated areas have elevated blood
lead levels, and fluoride may also increase the absorption of lead into the
body... Lead itself is a potent neurotoxin and has been shown to play a role
in ADHD._

What is the likelihood that in areas with lower spending on municipal water
that lead pipes are still used and they use the cheapest for of fluoridation
available?

This freaks me out a little.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
The concern over lead in the water system is largely focused on lead-based
solder in copper pipes. That is restricted largely to postwar homes up until
the emergence of PVC and PEX plumbing in the 80's.

~~~
fulafel
Plastic pipes can put endocrine disruptors like BPA/BPS and other nasties in
the water. It's pretty common for new piping to leave noticable odor/taste for
a while.

For "other nasties" see [http://grist.org/living/is-it-safe-to-drink-water-
out-of-pla...](http://grist.org/living/is-it-safe-to-drink-water-out-of-
plastic-pipes/) "Some of the latest research coming out of the NSF project
tested several brands of PEX tubing for chemical leaching – and found it."

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falcolas
Correlation link only at this point. From the abstract:

> Overall state water fluoridation prevalence (not distinguishing between
> fluoridation types) was also significantly positively correlated with state
> prevalence of ADHD for all but one year examined. [...] The relationship
> between fluoride exposure and ADHD warrants future study.

Still, it will be interesting to see what more comes out of this.

~~~
NWDrew72
For Newsweek, what comes out of it is clicks, obviously.

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Argorak
It's been a while since I read up on the subject for personal reasons, but
wasn't one of the problems with ADHD for a long time that getting accurate
numbers was hard because of frequent misdiagnosis (actually just diagnosing a
depression instead). Especially, because the symptoms were still considered
debatable at that time? So maybe, diagnosis shifted dramatically during that
time as well?

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shoyer
Here's the original journal article (which is open access):
[http://www.ehjournal.net/content/pdf/s12940-015-0003-1.pdf](http://www.ehjournal.net/content/pdf/s12940-015-0003-1.pdf)

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nickhalfasleep
You could also say that more civilized locations have better doctors capable
of diagnosing ADHD.

~~~
DennisP
Perhaps. But given that we have several candidate mechanisms, and experiments
showing that fluoride really does cause hyperactivity in rats, I wouldn't
write this off too quickly.

~~~
johndevor
Link?

~~~
DennisP
It's right there in the Newsweek article, which links to a study at PubMed.

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rcthompson
After reading the title and the paper's abstract, this seems to me like just
one more instance of the many, many statistics that are strongly correlated
with overall economic development of a society, and hence strongly correlated
with each other without any causal link. In this case, the relevant factors
would be "water fluoridation prevalence" and "capacity of doctors to diagnose
ADHD", which are both almost certainly correlated with the overall economic
status of a society (not of individuals).

~~~
elif
It is naive postulation to dismiss the paper for not addressing a variable,
when you have not even read the paper to know whether they addressed the
variable.

Further, your cursory read of the abstract somehow missed the clause "after
controlling for socioeconomic status"

~~~
michael_h
I think the 'controlling for socioeconomic status" was just between the
states, not an all encompassing control of economic status. Two states with a
similar rise in economic activity and ADHD wouldn't fail afoul of the control.
Maybe.

This article _might_ hold up, but my past experience with statistics in
medical papers does not give me great hope. For a while, my job was to review
the math in interesting papers (well, interesting to who ever flagged it) from
medical journals. In the three years that I did this, I encountered _exactly
zero_ that didn't commit some grave statistical sin.

~~~
elif
It would be a statistical sin to determine that after seeing N papers with an
error, that the N+1th would certainly have an error. Extrapolating the
specific error without even seeing the paper is closer to rhetoric than
science.

~~~
michael_h
Of course you're right, which is _exactly why I didn 't write that_.

Again: the paper might be correct, but past experience has taught me to be
skeptical.

~~~
throwawayaway
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9156257](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9156257)

I was bothered by this study, and particularly this bit:

"After adjusting for sociodemographics, other drug use and childhood
depression, we found no significant associations between lifetime use of
psychedelics and increased likelihood of past year serious psychological
distress, mental health treatment, suicidal thoughts, suicidal plans and
suicide attempt, depression and anxiety."

It seems they test life time usage, yet only "past year" serious psychological
distress, mental health treatment, suicidal thoughts, suicidal plans and
suicide attempt, depression and anxiety.

Can I get your opinion on whether that "past year" applies to just "serious
psychological distress" or all the terms, including: "mental health treatment,
suicidal thoughts, suicidal plans and suicide attempt, depression and
anxiety".

It would seem to me that "past year" applies to all of the terms. In my
opinion the study misses the rather obvious problems that cause somebody to
quit psychedelics permanently, allowing them to recover. Those that quit long
ago would not report issues because they didn't happen in the immediate 12
month period previous.

Also acquaintances of mine who have ended up permanently hospitalised, are
obviously not going to be part of a survey like this.

Do you agree or disagree with any of that?

~~~
michael_h
I took a quick look. From the paper:

>Past year mental health indicators new to this study were suicide thoughts,
suicide plan...[etc]

So, it looks like 'past year' applies to all of the terms. I think the study
was looking at the long term effects, so if people who quit long ago didn't
report any issues, that would support the thesis that 'taking psychedelics
doesn't affect long term mental health'. I'm generally not a fan of studies
about illegal activity that use voluntary surveys, but this one doesn't look
poorly run. However, once you start putting maths to psychology, things get
weird very quickly and it's difficult to tell what's valid and what isn't.

~~~
throwawayaway
Thank you for taking the time. I disagree, I don't think they mention "long
term" mental health anywhere. They just say mental health without qualifying
it. In fact they only mention "long-term" benefits.

I find it really objectionable that it's titled:

"Psychedelics not linked to mental health problems or suicidal behavior: A
population study"

while looking at whole lifetime usage and comparing with past year effects.

If there was suicidal behaviour("successful" or otherwise) and mental health
problems in the immediate aftermath of taking psychedelics over a lifetime,
they don't really have any way of capturing that information unless it's
happened in the last 12 months. We agree that the "past year" applies to all
of the terms.

Just seems really irresponsible to me, but I'm clearly biased.

------
ajarmst
For some values of "ADHD", whose existence, diagnostic criteria, prevalence
and proper management are still wildly controversial.

~~~
Argorak
The existence is generally accepted, it's included in any larger medical
catalog[1], there are standard tests (UTAH test), there's a wide array of
literature, but management seems to be a problem.

[1]: it's classified with critieria since ICD-9, which was defined in 1978.

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thomasatethose
wasn't some other article on hn also taking about glycophosphates? being
linked to adhd. the compounds in this article sound similar

------
parfe
I think science articles should be banned from HN. The userbase is clearly not
educated well enough to deal with the issues. It only produces comments from
armchair scientists conjuring up whatever pet theory they can explain away the
results with. Comments like the classic freshman stats quote "correlation does
not equal causation", or the standard response starting with "Judging from the
abstract", or the always informative "I didn't read the paper, but what if
they forgot to control for X?"

The only topic that gets worse comments than science on HN is gender issues.

Edit: and killed by mods. From +25 at the top to the bottom

~~~
dang
Obviously we can't ban science articles, but the point you're raising is
important. Reductionist dismissal of new work based on partial understanding
of the marginally related is a tell-tale sign of the middlebrow. It is
epidemic in communities like this. I don't think there's anything more vital
to intellectual maturity than learning to recognize those dismissive reflexes
in oneself and inhibit them. That is the essence of an open mind.

There's an analogy to startup investing here. The habit of dismissing the
easily dismissable—the obviously lame, the obviously bad idea—guarantees
failure even though it's almost always right. This is what the masters of the
art keep trying to tell us.

I marked this subthread as off-topic because it's off topic; it doesn't mean
we don't agree.

The post has been hammered by both the flamewar detector and a ton of user
flags. We turned the former off, but not the latter. Doing more would probably
make things worse.

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CamperBob2
Yeah, in the same sense that Satoshi Nakamoto's name correlates strongly with
that of a randomly-chosen 64-year-old engineer trying to enjoy a modest, quiet
retirement in the Bay Area.

The "truthiness" factor of anything published in Newsweek lies somewhere
between Mother Goose and the Brothers Grimm.

------
bicknergseng
Ugh. I hate to think of all of the "I told you so's" from the misguided people
in Portland who continually vote against fluoridating the water with no actual
scientific basis for doing so.

~~~
Alex3917
So you're saying that science says we should treat all drugs as being safe
unless proven to be harmful?

~~~
HelloMcFly
Or think more broadly. Fluoridation of water carries a massive public health
benefit, particularly to poorer families. Given the frequency of exposure
across locations and generations, what negative effect it has appears to be
extraordinarily very mild _at best_ , while the benefit it provides is
significant.

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fredfoobar42
And this is why I only drink rain water and pure grain alcohol... to ensure
the purity of my precious bodily fluids...

~~~
fredfoobar42
No Dr. Strangelove fans on HN?

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deeviant
I'm surprised the authors of the study didn't check proximity to cell
towers/power lines or some such thing.

~~~
dntrkv
[http://hps.org/hpspublications/articles/powerlines.html](http://hps.org/hpspublications/articles/powerlines.html)

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ericfrederich
Hearsay/conspiracy theory... but I heard that fluoride doesn't help your teeth
and that a general increase in hygiene occurred the same time that fluoride. I
also heard that it is a byproduct of processing aluminium and they coaxed the
government to put it into water rather than disposing of it responsibly.

~~~
cyorir
Pure bullshit. Fluoride (F-) is a weak base. Dental plaque produces acid (H+)
which is one cause of tooth decay. F- + H+ <-> HF. The Fluoride neutralizes
some of the acid to reduce tooth decay.

~~~
im3w1l
That's not the main way it protects the teeth. If you just wanted to
neutralize the acids, you could rinse/drink with a buffer such as milk.
Flouride works by integrating with your teeth. It forms a mineral that it is
more resistant to acid attack than the mineral teeth are made of naturally.

~~~
scubadude
Yes, the biggest benefit is when the tooth is forming. It's like boro-silicate
glass (pyrex) or steel; some atoms in the crystalline structure of the base
material are replaced with others, which improves the overall strength of the
result. So, like boron improves glass and carbon improves iron (to make steel)
then fluoride improves the tooth structure.

