Fluoride May Be Your Next Contraceptive?

October 29, 201

By Dr. Mercola

In the US, where about two-thirds of drinking water supplies are fluoridated, men may be putting their fertility at risk with every sip of water from the tap.

Research has long linked fluoride in drinking water with sperm damage and other threats to reproductive health, although many Americans remain completely in the dark about the association.

Yet, most of the studies on fluoride use sodium fluoride, which while extremely toxic is pharmaceutical-grade fluoride -- NOT the kind added to water supplies. So researchers set out to determine the toxicity of the fluoride compounds that are actually in most water supplies. Here’s what they found…

Fluoride in Drinking Water May Be Toxic to Sperm

First a bit of background… sodium fluoride was the first of the fluoride waste materials to be used for fluoridation, but now is rarely used. It's the most well known, as this is ‘pharmaceutical grade’ compound used in toxicology studies and other research into the potential health dangers of fluoride.

The other two types of fluoride, sodium silicofluoride and hydrofluorosilicic acid, are the compounds actually used for water fluoridation. Sodium silicofluoride and hydrofluorosilicic acid are the waste products from the fertilizer industry and are actually classified as hazardous wastes.

The new study compared the toxicity of three fluoride compounds – sodium fluoride and two silicofluorides used for water fluoridation – to determine their effect on the growth, feeding and reproduction of roundworms. They found:1

“Exposure to these compounds produced classic concentration-response toxicity profiles… This suggests that silicofluorides have similar toxicity to NaF [sodium fluoride].”

Since sodium fluoride appears to be equally toxic as the fluoride chemicals added to drinking water, it raises serious concern about another recent study, which found sodium fluoride may damage sperm chemotaxis, the process by which sperm are attracted toward an egg, which plays a critical role in allowing fertilization to occur.2 Though this study involved mice, if the findings apply to humans it could put men at risk of becoming infertile…

Fluoride May Be Dangerous to Male Fertility

Past research, too, has shown that fluoride has potentially disastrous effects on the male reproductive system. The Fluoride Action Network (FAN) reported:3

• Exposing ram semen to 0.38 parts per million (20 umol/L) of fluoride for five hours caused a “statistically significant decrease in the motility of spermatozoa” along with other changes that would “undoubtedly affect the physiological function of the sperm.”
• Infusing testes with modest amounts of fluoride (4.75 parts per million) inhibited the synthesis of testosterone
• Sixty animal studies have found that fluoride adversely impacts the male reproductive system, including...........................