[TheBattman]

Just heard a report on the local talk show a couple of weeks back about cavity/tooth decay rates in the US heading back up, and it is being attributed partly to the increase in the use of bottled water by kids...Bottle water contains no Fluoride.

[Justa]

The article cites a different cause:

"With dentists’ fees rising far faster than inflation and more than 100 million people lacking dental insurance, the percentage of Americans with untreated cavities began rising this decade, reversing a half-century trend of improvement in dental health," according to the NY Times (7)"

[hellbender]

Bottle water contains no Fluoride.

Are you sure? I understood that most bottled water comes from municipal water supplies anyway, and most public water is fluoridated. Ergo...

I would suspect the increase in consumption of sugary soft drinks and sticky carbohydrate "snack foods", not bottled water.

[nyscof]

There is no evidence that drinking fluoride free bottled water leads to tooth decay. In fact, fluoride overdose symptoms have increased at the same time that tooth decay has risen. J Public Health Dent. 2007 Summer;67(3):151-8. Links An investigation of bottled water use and caries in the mixed dentition. CONCLUSION: While bottled water users had significantly lower fluoride intakes, this study found no conclusive evidence of an association with increased caries. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17899900&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum ------------------------------------------- Even when fluoridated water is the most consumed item, cavities are extensive when diets are poor, according to Caries Research. "Dietary Patterns Related to Caries in a Low-Income Adult Population, Burt, et al., Caries Research 2006:40:473-480