Flouride in tea

We often hear about fluoride in our toothpaste providing a healthy addition to our daily oral hygiene routine, but some recently published research has claimed that fluoride in our tea could actually be harmful for us and in particular our bones.

The study published in the journal Environmental Pollution states that some teas may contain more fluoride that is permitted in public water supplies.

Tea plants (Camellia sinensis) absorb fluoride from soil and air then released from 1.47 to 6.9 milligrams fluoride per litre (mg/L) when brewed. Long term ingestion of too much fluoride from copious quantities of traditional teas may in some instances increase the chance of developing a condition called fluorosis. This can cause arthritic like symptoms.

Fluoride from tea, alone, has reportedly caused skeletal fluorosis, an arthritic-type disease that most US physicians aren’t trained to diagnose and consumers aren’t informed about. During the study the scientists brewed 54 different brands of tea and found that fluoride levels were higher than expected in nearly all of the brands.

Many children already ingest and absorb above the recommended daily dose of fluoride from toothpaste alone.