Fluorine is a poisonous halogen gas. It is very dangerous and should be kept out of the environment and out of our bodies.
Fluoride is half of a salt. The other half is often a metal, but can be other things, including another halogen. Bromine fluoride is one example of a halogen/halogen salt.
One column of the Periodic Table lists the halogen elements. The word "halogen" means "salt forming." Halogen elements react with just about everything to form salts. They especially react with metals. Some salts are safer than others.
Sodium chloride is table salt. Potassium chloride is a medically used "salt substitute" (meaning table salt substitute) believed by the medical community to be less dangerous than table salt. But people can consume too much of anything, including potassium, and too much of anything can have dangerous effects on the body.
Fluorine is the most reactive of the halogens. It easily forms salts with every known metal, becomes "fluoride" when it's in its salt form, and some metals are highly poisonous.
Salts dissolve in water, but they don't really go into their individual components in water. The molecules are still bonded, the atoms just drift further apart. Salts dissolved in water carry electrical charges (put the base of a 5- or 7- watt light bulb in a little water, and it lights up).
How dangerous a fluoride salt is depends on what the fluoride is bonded to. To look at a few:
Tin fluoride is also called stannous fluoride, and is a common form of fluoride used in prevention of tooth decay. It is used in toothpastes, mouthwashes, and canned soda pops, to name a few things. Tin is not easily absorbed by the body, but that which is absorbed can damage the lungs, the kidneys, and the nervous system, including the brain. It does seem to be protective against at least some forms of cancer, however.
Many other fluoride salts are very easily absorbed by the body. Some easily absorbable fluoride salts are used as rat poisons.
Sodium fluoride is used to fluorinate drinking water as a community-wide preventative of tooth decay, and as a contrast in medical imaging. It is stored in bones, and makes them harder, but does not prevent or reverse osteoporosis. Some physicians prescribe it for that purpose, anyway. It can cause damage to the heart and circulatory system, even to the point of cardiac arrest, to other muscles, and to the digestive system.
Aluminum fluoride can damage the brain, the liver, and the kidneys. It is mostly used in manufacture of metals and glass. It generally enters our bodies as an industrial pollutant.
Mercury fluoride is used in the manufacture of metals and as a fluorinating agent. Mercury is highly toxic in the human body, and causes brain, liver, and kidney damage. It is toxic to fetuses.
Antimony fluoride is used in the fluorination process. It is highly toxic and causes liver, kidney, heart, and nervous system damage.
Fluoride itself is a poison, and can damage lungs, digestive tract, nervous system including the brain, heart, and unborn babies. It is implicated as one of many causative factors in AD/HD and Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Like many poisons, in homeopathic doses, fluoride is generally safe to use, and has some beneficial effects on the body. Preventing tooth decay is the most well-known, and the one for which it is most often used. True homeopathic preparation is difficult to achieve for community wide use, so "low dose" preparations are used, instead. Low dose preparations of poisons do not have the same safety profile as homeopathic preparations.
Fluoride salts are just one of many pollutants found in community tap water. They are added intentionally as a public health measure, and the potential damages they can cause is dependent upon which salt is used and how much of it gets into a person (or animal).
As a naturopath, I support the use of distilled or reverse osmosis purified water for drinking (with added fresh-squeezed lemon juice) and cooking purposes, but I do not support the storage of distilled or reverse osmosis purified water in plastic bottles. Plastic leaches into water and other liquids stored in it, and plastic is also toxic in our bodies.
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