Fluoride - Alzheimers Disease
and Copper Pipes
By Robert Jay Rowen, MD
The fluoride debate is boiling in Sonoma County. Those drinking its water should know about some startling fluoride revelations. Recent research has connected “hidden” dots linking fluoride with the most dread of all diseases – Alzheimer’s (AD). But it may not be fluoride directly, but fluoride’s effects on your copper pipes.
Copper in your body exists as either organic copper, or metallic copper. The former is copper properly protein shielded from causing damage. Metallic or free copper ions, like free iron, can wreak havoc. Let me connect some dots for you:
1) Free copper binds to all proteins involved in AD. This includes critical proteins, that left alone, would usher out the accumulated toxic beta amyloid sludge that eventually kills neurons. Copper inactivates the removal processes!
2) AD patients carry higher free copper levels.
3) Japan is an AD anomaly in the developed world. It has quite a low incidence. Interestingly, Japan neither fluoridates its water, nor are copper pipes widespread. Japan uses stainless steel. Undeveloped countries don’t use copper pipes (too expensive) and also have far lower rates of AD.
4) Free copper is significantly elevated in blood of AD patients compared to age matched controls. Higher copper levels also correlated with less cognitive function, and greater rate of future cognitive decline.
5) Zinc is copper’s natural antagonist. Zinc has protected cognitive decline in both animal and human studies.
Chlorination is required for safety of drinking water. However chlorine compounds alone corrode lead containing brass, and will increase lead concentrations from 100 ppb to 200 ppb in drinking water. A 2005 California symposium pointed to copper pipe failure caused by the use of chloramines used in California water systems to extend the disinfecting power of chlorine. Chloramines aggressively leach copper and other metals from whatever it touches.
So how does fluoride fit in? Tacoma had to close down fluoridation in its system in 1992. Fluoridated water had eaten away metallic copper from its pipes, exposing lead in fittings. Lead levels soared. When fluoridation was stopped, lead fell, only to rise again when fluoride was restarted. Fluorsilicic acid caused lead levels to spike to over 900 ppb. Fluoride’s addition creates ammonium fluosilicate, an established solvent for metallic copper alloys. Other cities have documented clear dangerous lead drinking water elevations after fluoridation began (Lebanon, OR, NYC, Thurmont MD).
Fluoridation may contribute to calcification (destruction) of the pineal gland in humans at an early age. The pineal makes critical melatonin (a protective and sleep associated hormone). The National Research Council is concerned about fluoride’s effect on melatonin production. Melatonin protects against fluoride toxicity, so we may have a vicious cycle of fluoride eliminating our protection, exacerbating its toxicity. The aged calcified pineal gland has about the same amount of fluoride as do teeth – not good.
America has an epidemic of degenerative joint disease (DJD). Even doctors don’t know that spinal and other joint DJD is x-ray indistinguishable from fluorosis (overt fluoride poisoning). Much DJD that modern medicine has diagnosed might actually be fluorosis. One of my patients with hip DJD, needing replacement, had the veracity to send his removed joint to France for fluoride testing. It was LOADED! Medicine should routinely test for bone fluoride in these orthopaedic procedures!
Fluoride, at levels added to drinking water, significantly inhibits DNA polymerase, the enzyme that builds and repairs DNA. The “safety” window is exceptionally small. There’s no way to control for total individual dose. Consider: bread, sodas, prepared/canned food, processed foods, may all be made with fluoridated water. Even bottled water often comes from fluoridated sources. And worse, contrary to the pundits promoting fluoride, what is added to water has NO relation to natural fluoride. The latter is calcium fluoride, far safer than sodium fluoride or the even more toxic silicofluorides (usually used).
Sonoma county supervisors would do well to heed concerns of the voters rather than the medical industry regarding fluoridation, and permanently reject exposing their citizens to this well-known potentially dementia related poison. Please let them know!