Fluoride in drinking water

I’ve had a private water supply for the past 31 years. I’ve queried a few of times whether a lack of fluoride would have a detrimental effect on my children’s teeth and was told that using a fluoride toothpaste daily would suffice. Their teeth are fine in their late 20s.
There is a clear benefit to untreated water (from a chalk aquifer) in that we’re all very healthy people!

Fluoride in water is definitely a good thing, dentally speaking. Fluorine is a reactive gas and is not used in the water supply. When fluoridation was first introduced in the UK there were the usual scare stories.

Is it that our teeth are in bad condition or is it that the ordinary inhabitants of this country have been less enthusiastic than other nations in embracing cosmetic dentistry?

Every celebrity, entertainer and even politicians these day has a dazzling white smile and perfectly even teeth, all the result of cosmetic dentistry. It doesn;t follow that their dental health is good.

I can remember in my childhood people with excessively crooked teeth, discoloured teeth that clearly needed fillings and with visible gaps where teeth were missing. You rarely see that now. Looking around at people, most have even and natural looking teeth.

People can have well maintained and healthy teeth, without having cosmetically improved teeth.

We’ve had fluoridated water for years. My 4 children, now all in their 40s, have never had a filling unlike me because I was brought up in London and had a mouth full of fillings by the time I was 13. My grandchildren also never have to have fillings so fluoridated water certainly worked in that sense. The toothpaste is also fluoridated,however, and I imagine that might lead to too much of a good thing we’re you to swallow it as a child.