While a child is in his developmental phase when bones and teeth are developing, fluoride in drinking water above a 0.2-0.7 ppm(parts per million) it while have a devastating effects on these tissues.
Depending on the fluoride content taken during that age a condition called fluorosis may manifest in severe, moderate, and mild form.
mild forms may portray as white stain bands on teeth and with increasing severity these stains may become brownish black. Severest forms may cause pitting, mottling of tooth structure.
Since this is within tooth structure so it is called intrinsic staining and cannot be removed but can be hidden:).
hence the importance of fluoridated water!. In pakistan people residing in mianwali and surroundings have fluorosis due to unchecked fluoride content.
However in adult life fluoridated tooth pastes are important. Our tooth is made of a building block called hydroxyapatite. This offers less resistance to tooth decay. When fluoride ion is around the hydroxy part is replaced by fluoride and tooth is now less prone to decay.
So, the take home msg is that too much fluoride in developing age is bad and fluoride added tooth pastes are good:)
