Article Review: Fluoride in the Human Pineal Gland

One of the websites that patients always direct me to when trying to educate me on the dangers of fluoride is the "Fluoride Action Network's" www.fluoridealert.org. Honestly, they have done a great job of collecting a huge wealth of research articles on the topic of fluoride. Analyzing the research without bias, however, is a different story.

A well known article from 2001 about human pineal gland calcification is available on their site to read, but not in PDF form. Find it here: https://fluoridealert.org/studies/luke-2001/

We will review that today.

So....

In the late 1900's a study was performed on 11 aged human cadavers in the UK where they analyzed the fluoride and calcium content of their pineal glands. A bulk of the article describes the treatments used on the glands to be able to measure their fluoride content, and then they analysed the correlation between fluoride and calcium. Their findings were that there was a strong correlation (0.73) between the fluoride and calcium concentrations in the pineal gland, and that the concentration of fluoride was higher in the gland vs the concentration in the bone.

This comes as no surprise as it is well known that fluoride loves to bind to calcium containing tissues. The authors confirm that by stating, "The high fluoride levels in the pineal are presumably due to the large surface area of the HA crystallites both intra- and extracellularly." and, "the extremely high level of substitution in the crystal structure of pineal HA [hydroxyapatite] by fluoride illustrates the readiness with which fluoride replaces the hydroxyl ion in the HA crystal."

The authors did not indicate that they were able to assess if the subjects had any pineal gland disorders or associated illnesses. In actuality, the average age of the cadavers was 82, so they lived long lives. The average life expectancy in the UK was just under 78 in 2001 when this article was published, so surely any calcifications did not shorten these people's life spans!

But again, like in many articles found on the FAN website, without their primary research pointing towards any sort of pathology, the authors conclude..."In fact, calcification of the developing enamel organs and the pineal gland occur concurrently. If fluoride does accumulate in the child’s pineal (this needs verification), the pinealocytes will be exposed to relatively high local concentrations of fluoride. This could affect pineal metabolism in much the same way that high local concentrations of fluoride in the developing enamel organ affect ameloblast function. Research is presently underway to discover whether fluoride affects pineal physiology during childhood: specifically pineal synthesis of melatonin."

Their study has nothing to do with children, so why they bring them up at this point is perplexing, and they state unverified "facts" that are not supported by their primary research. The introduction of new concepts in a final paragraph would be a no-no in even the most primary of classes. These are extremely biased, unsubstantiated conclusions, which unfortunately will be the snips that people love to copy and paste when they are arguing about the dangers of fluoride.

Please do not stop brushing your teeth with fluoride because you read this article.

Thanks!

Dr. Dave