I will not regularly use anything containing fluoride because it is possible that the fluoride is toxic to at least part of the population though I might have fluoride applied to a part of a tooth that a dentist has identified as being decalcified.
My body is less able to remove or render inactive a wide variety of toxic chemicals, which is a common condition. It is hard for me to know what someone without that condition should do about fluoride, but it is far from clear that the right decision is to use fluoride unless one is particularly prone to cavities. (I suspect that most fillings placed in adults in the U.S. are unnecessary and would not be recommended if the dentist did not want to increase his or her income, so if a dentist you do not know well recommends a filling, get a second opinion.)
P.S. Most of the time when I brush, I use a drop of mild liquid soap (Method dish soap or Dr Bronner’s). Sometimes I use hydrogen peroxide (when I think it might help to kill the kind of bugs in my mouth that peroxide will tend to kill). And very occasionally when a patch of my gums experience a certain kind of itchiness that I associate with bad bugs, I will use a mouthwash containing chlorhexidine. I have not bought toothpaste in about 10 years because except for the fluoride I have seen no evidence that they’re better than the alternatives listed above. E.g., all of the toothpaste I have looked at contains soap or detergent, typically sodium laureth sulfate. They’ve all also contained some sort of fine particles of some calcium-containing substance, but I assign no expected utility to that.
EDIT: removed text implying that neurotoxicity is the most problematic adverse effect of fluoride. (It’s been so long since I looked at fluoride, I forget what effects worried me.)
Nobody mentioned any convincing reason adults previously exposed to fluoride should care; I’d point out that I currently have citations to 3+ studies showing no intellectual benefits to iodine supplementation in elementary age and older kids or adults, and iodine’s effects on IQ are much better established than fluoride.
I have seen no evidence that they’re better than the alternatives listed above.
They are better at tasting minty though! ;)
typically sodium laureth sulfate. They’ve all also contained some sort of fine particles of some calcium-containing substance, but I assign no expected utility to that.
I feel a significant difference when I use a paste containing triclosan than one just containing the detergent—in particular several hours later when using the triclosan-lacking paste I’ll get the “bacteria is building up” feeling/taste/sense. I have not compared this to peroxide use.
Minty is OK, but chalky is kind of icky IMHO (and like I said before, I assign no expected utility to chalky even though I understand that it tends to polish hard surfaces).
In some sort of formal way? Not currently. The VoI seems low. The potential for optimisation that most interests me here is the water pick that Kevin has been mentioned. Do you know anything about those?
No. I’d actually never heard of them before. I looked quickly at Wikipedia and one of the claims struck me as equivocal—it may be better at reducing bleeding than flossing, but it’s only as good at the actual anti-plaque cleaning?
Hope I don’t sound like an advertisement, but I like Squigle toothpaste. It’s twice as expensive as normal toothpaste, but they leave out sodium laureth sulfate and there’s a flouride-free version. It uses xylitol, an anticavity sweetener. To me, the improvement in taste over dish soap is worth the price premium.
OK, but note that if you use just one drop of Dr Bronner’s and take a few seconds at the beginning to spread the soap around all four quadrants, the main sensation is sudsiness or foaminess rather than any taste of soap.
Thought-provoking questions. This is my first toothpaste review, but here goes:
Colour: Opaque white
Nose: mint, xylitol
Palate: Something between a paste and a gel, fading to insubstantial and slightly foamy
Taste: Peppermint and wintergreen fades to xylitol, a hint of fennel, and some lingering bitterness.
Finish: N/A, spat into sink.
Thoughts: None of the harsh, palate-scouring astringent acidity of Colgate or other conventional toothpastes. Very little “inedible chemical” impression, although that could be muted if you’re not familiar with xylitol.
Rating: 90⁄100
I accidentally bought a dozen of them on Amazon instead of the one I’d intended on, and only managed to give away six to local friends, so I’d be happy to mail a tube to up to 3 of the dentally dissatisfied here (but it’s the fluoridated version).
I use Tom’s of Maine Wintergreen Fluoride-free toothpaste (okay, dentifrice), which sounds almost exactly like what you are describing. It sells in Walmart for about the same price as “regular” toothpastes. I really only buy it because I think that for general consumers in the USA, extra fluoride is unnecessary, so I rebel by buying the only locally available commercial alternative. Anyway, as an additional point to your description of the flavor which probably follows with Squigle too, it tastes “duller” than Colgate, Crest, etc., much like the difference between say, a Diet Coke and Coke Classic. At first it was unpleasant because that’s not how my brain thinks toothpaste is supposed to taste, but neuroplasticity saved the day. I don’t attribute any special benefit to the toothpaste itself, but I brush only once a day and haven’t been to a dentist in the past fifteen years or so, so if I have cavities, they’re not bad enough to call attention to themselves.
I will not regularly use anything containing fluoride because it is possible that the fluoride is toxic to at least part of the population though I might have fluoride applied to a part of a tooth that a dentist has identified as being decalcified.
My body is less able to remove or render inactive a wide variety of toxic chemicals, which is a common condition. It is hard for me to know what someone without that condition should do about fluoride, but it is far from clear that the right decision is to use fluoride unless one is particularly prone to cavities. (I suspect that most fillings placed in adults in the U.S. are unnecessary and would not be recommended if the dentist did not want to increase his or her income, so if a dentist you do not know well recommends a filling, get a second opinion.)
P.S. Most of the time when I brush, I use a drop of mild liquid soap (Method dish soap or Dr Bronner’s). Sometimes I use hydrogen peroxide (when I think it might help to kill the kind of bugs in my mouth that peroxide will tend to kill). And very occasionally when a patch of my gums experience a certain kind of itchiness that I associate with bad bugs, I will use a mouthwash containing chlorhexidine. I have not bought toothpaste in about 10 years because except for the fluoride I have seen no evidence that they’re better than the alternatives listed above. E.g., all of the toothpaste I have looked at contains soap or detergent, typically sodium laureth sulfate. They’ve all also contained some sort of fine particles of some calcium-containing substance, but I assign no expected utility to that.
EDIT: removed text implying that neurotoxicity is the most problematic adverse effect of fluoride. (It’s been so long since I looked at fluoride, I forget what effects worried me.)
Previous fluoride discussion: http://lesswrong.com/lw/a5f/water_fluoridation/
Nobody mentioned any convincing reason adults previously exposed to fluoride should care; I’d point out that I currently have citations to 3+ studies showing no intellectual benefits to iodine supplementation in elementary age and older kids or adults, and iodine’s effects on IQ are much better established than fluoride.
I haven’t heard about this. Details?
They are better at tasting minty though! ;)
I feel a significant difference when I use a paste containing triclosan than one just containing the detergent—in particular several hours later when using the triclosan-lacking paste I’ll get the “bacteria is building up” feeling/taste/sense. I have not compared this to peroxide use.
Minty is OK, but chalky is kind of icky IMHO (and like I said before, I assign no expected utility to chalky even though I understand that it tends to polish hard surfaces).
Any plans to test that?
In some sort of formal way? Not currently. The VoI seems low. The potential for optimisation that most interests me here is the water pick that Kevin has been mentioned. Do you know anything about those?
No. I’d actually never heard of them before. I looked quickly at Wikipedia and one of the claims struck me as equivocal—it may be better at reducing bleeding than flossing, but it’s only as good at the actual anti-plaque cleaning?
I just did a brief look at the easily accessible abstracts that I could find and got the impression:
Oral irrigator + electric brush > Oral irrigator + normal brush > flossing + electric brush > flossing + normal brush > normal brush.
I’m not sure to what degree publication bias applies.
Hope I don’t sound like an advertisement, but I like Squigle toothpaste. It’s twice as expensive as normal toothpaste, but they leave out sodium laureth sulfate and there’s a flouride-free version. It uses xylitol, an anticavity sweetener. To me, the improvement in taste over dish soap is worth the price premium.
You had me at “Xylitol”!
Do they include something as a replacement for the Sodium laureth sulfate?
OK, but note that if you use just one drop of Dr Bronner’s and take a few seconds at the beginning to spread the soap around all four quadrants, the main sensation is sudsiness or foaminess rather than any taste of soap.
Also, is it chalky like almost all toothpastes?
Thought-provoking questions. This is my first toothpaste review, but here goes:
Colour: Opaque white
Nose: mint, xylitol
Palate: Something between a paste and a gel, fading to insubstantial and slightly foamy
Taste: Peppermint and wintergreen fades to xylitol, a hint of fennel, and some lingering bitterness.
Finish: N/A, spat into sink.
Thoughts: None of the harsh, palate-scouring astringent acidity of Colgate or other conventional toothpastes. Very little “inedible chemical” impression, although that could be muted if you’re not familiar with xylitol.
Rating: 90⁄100
I accidentally bought a dozen of them on Amazon instead of the one I’d intended on, and only managed to give away six to local friends, so I’d be happy to mail a tube to up to 3 of the dentally dissatisfied here (but it’s the fluoridated version).
I use Tom’s of Maine Wintergreen Fluoride-free toothpaste (okay, dentifrice), which sounds almost exactly like what you are describing. It sells in Walmart for about the same price as “regular” toothpastes. I really only buy it because I think that for general consumers in the USA, extra fluoride is unnecessary, so I rebel by buying the only locally available commercial alternative. Anyway, as an additional point to your description of the flavor which probably follows with Squigle too, it tastes “duller” than Colgate, Crest, etc., much like the difference between say, a Diet Coke and Coke Classic. At first it was unpleasant because that’s not how my brain thinks toothpaste is supposed to taste, but neuroplasticity saved the day. I don’t attribute any special benefit to the toothpaste itself, but I brush only once a day and haven’t been to a dentist in the past fifteen years or so, so if I have cavities, they’re not bad enough to call attention to themselves.