I bought this stuff the other day (Pearl Drops Toothpolish) and it really whitens your teeth. It's made in England, so I don't know if it's sold outside the UK. The thing is, I seem to remember hearing a rumour that It works by stripping the enamel...Is this true?

It says on the back that it's "Not suitable for children under 7" and "Contains Sodium Monofluorophosphate".

Try looking at this site.

http://www.greatvistachemicals.com/industrial_and_specialty_chemicals/sodium_monofluorophosphate.html

Ingredients: Aqua, Sorbitol, Hydrated Silica, Glycerin, Tetrapotassium Pyrophosphate, Alumina, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Tetrasodium Pyrophosphate, PEG-12, Aroma, Sodium Monofluorophoshpate, Cellulose Gum, Sodium Saccharin, Sodium Fluoride, CI 77891.


Alumina=aluminum I think

Not something I would put in my mouth
The rest sounds like chemicals..

TOM's of Maine

I haven't looked into this lots but this is what I'm using at the moment. If anyone knows any negatives about the ingrediants let me know please.


Ingredient Purpose Source
Sorbitol Moistener Corn (Zea mays)
Water Consistency Maine aquifer
Hydrated silica Stain removal Purified silica from the earth
Xylitol
Antiplaque
Birch trees

Glycerin
Moistener
Vegetable oils

Sodium lauryl sulfate
Dispersant
Derived from coconut oil

Spearmint and peppermint oils
Flavor
Spearmint (Mentha spicata) and peppermint (Mentha piperita) leaves

Xanthan gum
Suspending agent
Fermentation of vegetable matter

Myrrh
Natural resin for a clean, healthy-feeling mouth
Resin from the myrrh (Commiphora myrrha) bush

Propolis
Natural resin for a clean, healthy-feeling mouth
Mixture of tree resin (Propolis cera) gathered by bees

As a Pharmaceutical Chemistry graduate, I can confirm that none of the ingredients will do you any harm. If any of them did, the product wouldn't be on the shelves.

I have to disagree. If you are talking about the pearl drop stuff. I believe man made chemicals have no place in our bodies in my opinion. Just cause you won't drop with a heart attack or get a rash doesn't mean its not stressing and adding toxins to the body.

I understand that the body has to deal with everything you eat, drink, breath, absorb etc and I don't believe toxins do you any good.

Think about a little chemicals in your toothpast-no, won't do much. plus shampoo and conditioner and soap, and hair gel/spray, and polution and in water and in made main so called foods (almost all) and in fruit and veg and meat and dairy and work enviroment and prescription drugs we conned into and all the other things we love to take to get rid of that head ache that is there because...? the crap booze etc etc etc

Personally I think that natural stuff tastes better and smells better and feels better (once you get use to you notice a big differance-you can smell the chemical fakeness of it all)

Probably hard to find a study saying brushing teeth a couple times a day will do anything (not that any of the big companies would put out the money to do that).

But it makes sense to me that it all adds up.

Honestly though you feel cleaner once you get use to not covering your self with chemicals. Skin is a big spunge...

Absorb alot in mouth too.

Alluminum-there is lots of studies on that.

"I can confirm that none of the ingredients will do you any harm. If any of them did, the product wouldn't be on the shelves."

Right!
:)

Jermaine, has the pharmaceutical industry ever been wrong in the past about any product ingredients being harmful to the body? Has there ever been a change of opinion within the scientific industry about chemical X, Y or Z's effects on the body after time has passed and there is more extensive research? Isn't cancer research alone unveiling evidence of new carcinogens every year? Substances that were once thought to be safe, but now scientists realize that it causes heart disease or some other illness?

Why would you ever think that science (or anything, for that matter) is perfect?

good points.


The body isn't made for man made chemicals. They do damage. Too small to sue? Too small to prove (whos looking?) maybe but add everything up and thats alot of toxins we take in.

Jermaine-I wouldn't imagine they'd be overly interested in looking into or informing anyone about it being bad for them.


slightly off topic but

I should check all the details but my training partners friend went for an interview to sell phar. products.

They basically said (I'm sure not accurate in numbers either) that the drugs may hurt or kill so many people but they can help people too and asked if he was cool with that. etc

I'll try to get the details. Basically they were saying do you mind selling stuff that will hurt people.

http://www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?content_id=491

an interesting article from a solid source

Well fair enough, the source seems solid enough but I'll bet you can find hundreds of other credible sites with data contrary to this. What are they suggesting? Don't brush your teeth? It's one thing for them to tell you how bad chemicals are in toothpaste but the reality is you need to brush your teeth.

Also, I hate it when they break down the chemicals and tell you the properties of each individual compound. The chemical properties change dramatically when combined with each other, they can react, or cancel out each others effects. It's easy to say there're harmful chemicals in products but if they are balanced out, they can be quite harmless.

Simple-use products that don't contain man made chemicals. Do it for awhile and you can smell the chemicals on people. Its nasty.

Jason
Toms
Alba
Berts Bees

A couple companies of the top of my head.

No one is saying don't brush your teeth. Although native cultures on native diets did not have tooth decay.

---
a little further up the thread..

Mark L. writes:

TOM's of Maine

I haven't looked into this lots but this is what I'm using at the moment. If anyone knows any negatives about the ingrediants let me know please.


Ingredient Purpose Source
Sorbitol Moistener Corn (Zea mays)
Water Consistency Maine aquifer
Hydrated silica Stain removal Purified silica from the earth
Xylitol
Antiplaque
Birch trees

Glycerin
Moistener
Vegetable oils

Sodium lauryl sulfate
Dispersant
Derived from coconut oil

Spearmint and peppermint oils
Flavor
Spearmint (Mentha spicata) and peppermint (Mentha piperita) leaves

Xanthan gum
Suspending agent
Fermentation of vegetable matter

Myrrh
Natural resin for a clean, healthy-feeling mouth
Resin from the myrrh (Commiphora myrrha) bush

Propolis
Natural resin for a clean, healthy-feeling mouth
Mixture of tree resin (Propolis cera) gathered by bees

I also agree that we can generally find studies saying anythig we want.

One key is to look at who is paying for it and doing it.

However a little common logic and a slight understanding of the body tells me that years ago when cancer, arthritis, diebetes, heart attacks etc etc were all but non exsitant most of the chemicals used to make everything we use etc were not yet made.

The body has to deal with everything you put in it. We have a detox system for a reason. But its not reasonable to think it can handle everything.

There is no sense getting scared of living but to me it make sense to limit chemical getting in the body where you can.

Natural toothpaste, soaps, cleaning agents etc etc is a relatively simple thing to do. I have also found that most seem to last longer so cost isn't even that bad.

Limiting toxins going into the body is something I think is worth simply buying products that are advertised so much and that very few people take.

IMO

companies are out there to make a buck..

Not brushing your teeth allows some bacterias to build up in the body that can have a damaging effect, some studies are finding scary mouth bacteria in damaged human hearts. Ancient people were not eating the same foods as us, some foods stick to the teeth more than others. Ancient people had much shorter life spans so you cant conclusively blame all degenerative diseases on modern society it could equally reflect a natural degeneration due to age in susceptible individuals that would previously not have lived long enough to show obvious symptoms. A healthy body should be able to deal with minor doses of un-natural products. I wont risk my chances with a nuclear reactor but im not going to wrap myself in cotton wool to avoid toxins. You do more damage to your imunity avoiding exposure to most everyday bacteria and substances. This doesnt mean exposure to serious diseases such as HIV wont harm you but you will be in a much worse state with the flu if your immune system hasnt been exposed to foreign substances before. I brush and floss my teeth and use mouth wash, a whole cart load of chemicals and dont spend a moment worrying about the minute traces of chemicals I ingest. Sanitation is one of the major breakthroughs that helped extend the human life span. For me its just mouth sanitation, and on par with washing your hands, you make be using chemicals but in terms of the whole picture and its benefits soap is better than walking around with god knows what continuously in contact with your skin. It also smells nicer :)

Most ancient cultures DID NOT die of degenerative disease.

If you read "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" Weston A Price, you will be blown away by the teeth of those who do not brush. Price was a dentist and looked very closely at teeth. He also did many studies on ancient bones, almost all of which had near perfect teeth.

I am not saying not to brush however. Just don't brush with things that are toxic to the body.

Sanitation IS a big thing that changed history. But you can do it the toxic or non toxic way.

Kind of a no brainer to me. But we all think differently.

Do I worry a minuit about it? No
If I forgot my tooth paste I would use a friends.

Am I going to buy poisons to put in my body? No

Eskimos had there teeth worn almost to nothing yet had no worries. Yet when individuals started eating processed crap teeth (and everything else) went to hell. Look at the Brits. We're known for bad teeth. We also have some of (if not the) largest consumption of processed flour and sugar.

Pottenger found the same results in cats on processed diets.

Both show x-rays etc very well done research. If it doesn't amaze you I'd be amazed.

Most ancient cultures did not live long enough to die of degenerative diseases. Altzhimers disease only affects older people, if you are only living to 40 you wont show symptoms of it, that doesnt mean that modern environment gives you it, it means you now live long enough to even have a chance of showing the symptoms of it.
My point was that they were not exposed to processed food back then so the bacterias we are now dealing with are not nescisarily the same ones. Australian aboriginals were not exposed to influenza prior to white settlement, that doesnt mean you put your head in the sand and continue to live as they previously did when a new threat has entered the equation. We currently face different stressors on the body than ancient cultures, so ancient soloutions wont always work. Im all for eating unprocessed food and not pill popping to often, but i think people can take the whole toxin avoidance issue too far to the point of ridiculous.

Brush your gums!

Up until the introduction of sugar in our diet, we used to sweeten our food with honey. It was after this that we began to show significant signs of tooth decay.

It was sugar that caused the radical increase of tooth decay, not the cleaning process.

Brian-I agree mostly-however sugar and white flour etc kind of came along together.

marlboro-look how young kids today get degenerative disease

diebetes (adult on set I'm taking) can't really be called that any more.

the bacterias aren't the same...how much of that isbecause our immune systems are weak and we are over pushed to take antibiotics that lead to more and more resistant strains of this that and the other?

Altzhiemers starts way before it gets to where we call it that.

How many people at 40 today have cancer, diabetes, colitis, etc etc etc etc???

Whats interesting with Prices work is that he shows how the body changes with a change in diet. I am talking physical changes in the body. All foods have a chemical and hormonal reaction in the body too. To think that this does not effect all systems in the body is unthinkable (to me).

I mean Price, being a dentist, looked alot at the teeth. FIRST generation on a change of diet led to defformities in the mouth (not just rotting). The shape of the dental arch, the breathing passages etc (the whole head and proportions). In women, the narrowing of the dental arch usually ment narrowing of the hips-leading to difficulties in birth which leads to loads of probs).

Tuberculosis is an example of disease susceptibility.

In Switzerland at the time of Price's travel (I think he went more than once) It was at near epedemic proportions. However Amoung villages that were eating thier native ways it was unheard of (in fact so were docs/dentists)

This is just an example.

He has some pretty profound examples with clients as well.

The interesting thing is that Pottenger got the same results in cats that were not fed right. Narrowing of dental arch, the same increased susceptibility to diseases. The females became more agressive and would bite and scratch 9those on healthy diest did not). Males became more docile.

The litters of the raw milk, raw meat vs processed milk and cooked meat-the highest processed/cooked group became extinct by the fourth generation. The raw group stayed healthy through out.

The difficulties with birthing. The amount of still births etc etc

There is some real amazing, very well done research here. But eating well and living smart in accordance with our design, doesn't make anyone money.

You don't have to agree but if you are interested i would love to hear your views on Prices or Pottengers work for example. Personally I think it'll amaze you.

Personally I believe the body isn't as weak and dependant on med drugs as we are lead to believe. I don't think the body always malfunctions or that its cause of a gene alone that this or that happens. In "Biochemical Individuality" -Roger J. Williams, Ph.D. talks about people being born with greater needs for different nutrients. Lets say you don't abosrb vit A as well as the next. or the enzyme production using it isn't as efficiant or you need more to make this or run that. There is genetics in that but that doesn't mean that adiquate nutrition, on a person by person basis, won't limit or eliviate many of those problems.

regardless of what nutrition could do, if inadiquat it certainly CAN'T do many things. And if you're detox, digestion, elimination, immune, endocrine etc etc systems cannot work you WILL be in trouble.

So yeah, living in accordance to our design, be that from Mother Nature, God or whatever you believe. Simply allows us to function. Not doing so WILL lead to problems.

There are times and places of ops, med drugs etc etc but without the basics there you ARE in trouble.

IMO

I guess the flouride they put in should be brought up.

Personally I would touch the stuff.

agree about the fluorine... i don't like brushing my teeth at night coz it sloughs off a lot of the cells on inside of my cheek, and i think the chemical combo is worse than regular morning stank breath
trying some non-fluorinated toothpastes feel better on the mouth and teeth and tastes better, so I think I'm gonna stick with no fluorine... plus we get plenty of that in our drinking water...
i don't know if we already discussed this somewhere, but fluorine isn't in our drinking water to make our teeth healthier, but because it's a byproduct of some industries that found a cheap way to dump their waste - into our water =)

I'd be scared to drink it too! There is actually lots of research on its dangers and not that much on its saftey.

Cheap way to dump waste...
making waste into products
finding ways to make things into products

these are some of the ways many a product comes about..

www.mercola.com

www.westonaprice.org

They'll both have some good articles on the subject.

There are some good sites on water too...

www.healthywater.com

Slightly off topic but I started a thread about the demise of VHS and how fragile DVDs are by comparison. I was googling for tips about cleaning up discs and someone on a forum suggested toothpaste, in particular 'pearl drops'.

I had 4 discs which were in pretty bad condition so figured I'd nothing to lose, 2 out of the 4 now play. The guy did say to dilute it a fair bit though because it's abrasive.

lol sounds like a better and safer use. Wear gloves though. jk

At present I am using J/A/S/O/N Sea Fresh
Tastes quite good. I tend to use less with natural products but I don't know why so cost is relative. However I guess I could use less with other stuff but I have noticed using less with natural products in general. Soap seems to last longer too though I haven't messured it out.

What's the deal with dental floss? Who thinks it's a good idea to brush your teeth with a piece of string? 32 teeth, 5 facets each, that's 160 facets.

I think it has its place...

Well, I see the point in using it before brushing but there's no way you can clean all your teeth with it. Not properly anyway. I don't think it's a good idea to force things between your teeth either.

I don't know.. I believe that a healthy life style and diet is the biggest thing but I think cleaning is good. I can't see any probs with floss...

toxins in general
http://www.ewg.org/issues/siteindex/issues.php?issueid=5004

Apparently there is a link between Aluminium and Dementia. Therefore, old Aluminium cooking pans are a no for me...scary thought man!

yeah thats stuff is nasty

anyone know flouride is a rat poison-whats in your tooth paste??

FDA never approved it either...hmmmmm

What do you put in your mouth?

The Fluoride Debate: A response to the American Dental Association's booklet, "Fluoridation Facts"
www.fluoridedebate.com

Fluoride Action Network (Excellent Resource, Very Up-to-Date)
www.fluoridealert.org

Fluoride: Protected Pollutant or Panacea? (Elkie Babiuk's site)
www.fluoridation.com

New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation
www.orgsites.com/ny/nyscof/

Fluoride Controversy, the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients
www.tldp.com/fluoride.htm

More Scientific Facts on Fluoride
www.all-natural.com/fleffect.html

Fluoride Research Journal
www.fluoride-journal.com

Preventive Dental Health Site
emporium.turnpike.net/P/PDHA/health.htm

America Overdosed on Fluoride - Lynn Landes (Includes e-mail correspondence inwhich an ADA spokesperson refutes news reports that non-fluoridated bottled water causes cavities, and what you can do to ban fluoride and educate others.)
www.zerowasteamerica.org/Fluoride.htm

The Toxic Effects of Fluoride (Be aware that they are selling a fluoride removal system.)
www.wholywater.com/fluoride.html

Fluoridation Debate (Environmental Health Perspectives, Volume 105, Number 11, November 1997)
ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/1997/105-11/forum.html

Fluoridation: The Overdosing of America - Fact or Fiction? (Slides by Gerald H. Smith, D.D.S.)
www.icnr.com/FluoridePres.html

Darryl W. Roundy, D.C. - Fluoride Research
www.atlaschiro.com/fluorideresch.htm

Fluoridation Fluoride Toxic Chemicals In Your Water
www.holisticmed.com/fluoride

Does water fluoridation have negative side effects?
doctoryourself.com/fluoride_cancer.html

Do memetics have you absorbing fluoride on a daily basis?

I don't care, it can't hurt me, they wouldn't allow it -all memes

does it help you lead a happier life, what about the life you choose?

does it hinder it?

if you answer no to the former and yes to the latter then its time to change some beliefs. Some 'truths'.

http://www.mercola.com/2006/dec/21/the-hidden-agenda----how-you-are-being-deceived-about-fluoride.htm

Want a wake up call about what the experts are taught is good for you?

I knew fluoride was bad news but I didn't realise how bad or the depth and reasons behind it all (well nt specifically).

A challenge anyone to watch and think.