Please fully research fluoride and danger...apologies, etc. If it was safe to drink fluoride, wouldn't it also be safe to swallow toothpaste? If it was safe to swallow toothpaste, why the warnings on the tube? Just a thought...please...for your Yorkie, consider doing lots of research on this subject, and please also check into the differences between fluoride used in toothpaste and fluoride added to drinking water.
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In 1997, the FDA ordered toothpaste manufacturers to add a
poison warning on all fluoride toothpastes sold in the U.S. The warning reads:
“Keep out of reach of children under 6 years of age. If you accidentally swallow more than used for brushing, seek professional help or contact a poison control center immediately.”
The FDA requires this warning because children who swallow too much fluoride toothpaste can suffer acute poisoning, even
death. In fact, a single tube of bubble-gum flavored Colgate-for-Kids toothpaste contains enough fluoride (143 mg) to kill a
child weighing less than 30 kg. (Whitford 1987a).
While fatalities from fluoride ingestion are rare (the last reported death occurred in 2002), bouts of
acute fluoride poisoning are not. Acute fluoride poisoning, which occurs at doses as low as 0.1 to 0.3 mg per kg of bodyweight, generally presents in the form of gastric pain, nausea, vomiting, headache, dizziness, and flu-like symptoms. (Akiniwa 1997; Gessner 1994). A child weighing 10 kg would only need to ingest 1 to 3 grams of paste (less than 3% of a tube of Colgate-for-Kids) to experience one or more of these symptoms.
Although it is believed that many poisoning incidents from fluoride toothpaste go undiagnosed and unreported (Shulman 1997), the number of calls to Poison Control Centers in the U.S. for fluoride poisonings from toothpaste has skyrocketed since the FDA issued its poison warning. Indeed, in the early 1990s (prior to the FDA’s warning), there were about 1,000 poisoning reports each year from fluoride toothpaste. (Shulman 1997). Today, there are over 23,000 reports a year, resulting in hundreds of emergency room treatments.
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Impaired Glucose Metabolism
Perhaps the most important, yet most overlooked, risk from excessive ingestion of fluoride toothpaste, is the impact it can have on blood glucose and insulin levels. In the 1980s, researchers at the University of Indiana reported that rats receiving acute, but relatively small, doses (0.5 mg/kg) of fluoride, had significantly higher glucose levels in their blood, and decreased levels of insulin. (Shahed 1986; Whitford 1987b). Since that time, numerous studies have repeated this finding (in both animals and humans) at doses which many children routinely ingest from fluoride toothpaste. It is now estimated, for example, that blood fluoride levels of just 95 ppb produce an increase in glucose levels and a decrease in insulin. (Menoyo 2005). Strikingly, this level is routinely exceeded by about 5 to 10% of children using fluoride toothpaste (particularly those living in fluoridated communities).
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Fluoride Action Network | Toothpastes