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Fluoridated water may contribute to diabetes rate
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Water fluoridation with sodium fluoride could be contributing to increased diabetes rates in the U.S., according to a press release from Case Western Reserve University.
Kyle Fluegge , PhD, a health economist in the division of disease control for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and co-director of the Institute of Health and Environmental Research in Cleveland, Ohio, analyzed the publicly available data on fluoride water levels and diabetes incidence and prevalence in 22 states. Two sets of regression analyses showed significant association between supplemental water fluoridation and increase in diabetes from 2005 and 2010.
Fluegge adjusted for obesity and physical activity collected from national telephone surveys. He also adjusted for estimated per capita tap water consumption, and from this found the positive association between fluoridation and diabetes.
“The models present an interesting conclusion that the association of water fluoridation to diabetes outcomes depends on the adjusted per capita consumption of tap water,” Fluegge said in the release. “Only using the concentration [of added fluoride] does not produce a similarly robust, consistent association.”
Fluegge reports several estimations in his models, including calculations of county-level water fluoride levels, per capita county tap water consumption and county measures of poverty, obesity and physical inactivity.
The study results suggest further research should be done on the association between fluoridation and diabetes.