Fluoride back in the News
It seems that every year there is an outbreak or news article about something that we test here at Eurofins. In the past few years we have been involved with the testing of:
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All of these incidents were caused by living organisms such as bacteria and protozoa, but we are also seeing an increase in the level of chemical testing that is making the news. Of particular interest is the talk about fluoride in New Zealand.
Fluoride is a very common element, ranked the 13th most common of the elements found in terrestrial locations. It is also found in seawater at levels of around 1.1 parts per million (ppm). New Zealand groundwater drinking water supplies contain fluoride at levels of between 0.02 and 0.20 ppm This means that fluoride is in the environment all around us and is in many things that we eat and drink.
A popular untreated drinking water fountain in Lower Hutt contains 0.17 ppm of fluoride which compares to the treated water at a level of 0.70 ppm.
During July 2017, Fair Go broadcasted an article on a commercial water filter marketed to remove fluoride. Fair Go claimed that the model they investigated could not remove fluoride while the company claimed that it could. The company asserted that it had performed a million dollars worth of lab tests to prove the performance of the filter.
Fluoride is difficult to remove from water due to its high solubility, but some of the water filters available in New Zealand can remove it. These filters tend to be a specialised type differing from the usual carbon based filters that are commonly available.
If you plan to purchase a filter to remove fluoride it is important to seek evidence from the company that the filter is fit for the purpose you require it for. Ask for a laboratory report showing the fluoride value of the water before and after filtration.
The values below were for a product we recently tested and show very clearly that the filter used in the report reduced the fluoride concentration of the customers water.
If asked what the biggest source of dietary fluoride was, many New Zealanders would say drinking water or maybe toothpaste. In fact neither of these would be right.
Tea and Kombucha drinkers ingest more fluoride from the tea than from any other source because the tea plant Camellia sinensis concentrates fluoride in its leaves, and this is extracted by the teamaking process. We performed a study at Eurofins by taking some common brands of tea along with some known styles of tea and a chamomile tea and determined the fluoride content of each.
A sample of the tea, either 1 teabag or 1 tablespoon of tea, was infused in boiling deionised water for 3 minutes and then analysed using a calibrated Ion Selective Electrode. By using deionised water we removed the fluoride content of the water so that only the fluoride from the tea was measured.
If the tea has been made with fluoridated water then the level of fluoride could be as high as 2.8 ppm.
As well as tea and tea-based drinks, fish and seafood also contain levels of fluoride that get ingested. Fluoride debate will continue in the public area, and fluoride news articles will continue to appear. As a laboratory it is our job to report test results without opinion so we will leave the debate to the wider
community.
Eurofins will maintain the capability to test for fluoride in a wide range of matrices including drinking water and vegetation. Please get in contact if you require a fluoride testing service.
