Did you know that fluoride is perfectly safe in suitable doses and an excellent tool for oral hygiene? It’s true! However, for kids who tend to swallow toothpaste or consume too much of the mineral, there can be some risks.
But fear not! An international team of scientists has been on a mission to find an alternative. They’ve been exploring toothpaste that uses hydroxyapatite, a naturally occurring mineral found in the skeleton.
Now, while some hydroxyapatite toothpaste is already available, these researchers wanted to see how it compared to fluoride-based toothpaste for adults. So, they conducted a double-blinded randomized clinical trial to test its effectiveness in preventing cavities.
They recruited 189 people aged 18-45 for an 18-month-long study. Half of them used hydroxyapatite toothpaste, while the other half used fluoridated toothpaste. And guess what? At the end of the trial, nearly 90 percent of patients in both groups had no new cavities!
This led the researchers to conclude that hydroxyapatite toothpaste is “not statistically inferior” to fluoride toothpaste when it comes to preventing cavities. Professor Elzbieta Paszynska, one of the study’s co-principal investigators, even called hydroxyapatite a “safe and effective alternative to fluoride in caries prevention for daily use.”
Now, before you start tossing out your fluoride toothpaste, keep in mind that normal doses of fluoride have been widely proven to be safe for adults. So, there’s not necessarily a huge incentive to switch.
However, for adults who are allergic to fluoride or need to avoid it due to medical treatments or certain health conditions, hydroxyapatite toothpaste could be a game-changer. It has also shown promising results in risk groups such as children and patients undergoing orthodontic therapy.
So, while we may not all be brushing our teeth with fluoride-free toothpaste in the near future, this study highlights the potential benefits of hydroxyapatite toothpaste. It’s an exciting development in the world of oral hygiene!
If you’re interested in diving deeper into the study, you can find it in Frontiers in Public Health.
