The Spice That Prevents Fluoride From Destroying Your Brain

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Fluoride’s neurotoxicity has been the subject of academic debate for decades and is now a matter of increasingly impassioned controversy among the general public as well.

Its now well-known IQ-lowering properties have spurred many people, especially in the heavily fluoridated regions of the United States, to organize at the local and statewide levels to oust this ubiquitous toxicant from municipal drinking water.

A compelling study published in the journal Pharmacognosy Magazine titled “Curcumin Attenuates Neurotoxicity Induced by Fluoride: An In Vivo Evidence“ adds experimental support to the suspicion that fluoride is indeed a brain-damaging substance, also revealing that a natural spice-derived protective agent appears effective against the various health effects associated with fluoride.

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The 2014 study was authored by researchers from the Department of Zoology at the University College of Science, Mohanlal Sukhadia University, in Udaipur, India, who have spent a decade investigating the mechanisms through which fluoride induces severe neurodegenerative changes in the mammalian brain, particularly in cells of the hippocampus and cerebral cortex.

The study opens by describing the historical backdrop for concern about fluoride’s significant and wide-ranging toxicity.

“Fluoride (F) is probably the first inorganic ion which drew [the] attention of the scientific world for its toxic effects and now the F toxicity through drinking water is well-recognized as a global problem. Health effect reports on F exposure also include various cancers, adverse reproductive activities, cardiovascular, and neurological diseases,” the study reads.

The study focused on fluoride-induced neurotoxicity, identifying excitotoxicity (stimulation of the neuron to the point of death) and oxidative stress as the two main drivers of neurodegeneration.

Subjects with the condition known as fluorosis, a mottling of tooth enamel caused by excessive exposure to fluoride during tooth development, have also been found to have neurodegenerative changes associated with a form of oxidative stress known as lipid peroxidation (rancidity).

Excess lipid peroxidation in the brain can lead to a decrease in total brain phospholipid content.

Owing to these well-known mechanisms of fluoride-associated neurotoxicity and neurodegeneration, the researchers identified the primary polyphenol in the spice turmeric—known as curcumin—as an ideal agent worth testing as a neuroprotective substance.

Previous research on curcumin indicates that it’s capable of acting as an antioxidant in three distinct ways: by protecting against singlet oxygen, hydroxyl radicals, and superoxide radical damage. Also, curcumin appears to raise endogenous glutathione production in the brain, a major antioxidant defense system.

In order to assess the neurotoxic effects of fluoride and prove curcumin’s protective role against it, researchers randomly divided mice into the following four groups for 30 days:

1. Control (no fluoride)
2. Fluoride (120 ppm), given in distilled drinking water without restriction
3. Fluoride (120 ppm/30 mg/kg body weight) and curcumin: An oral dose of curcumin dissolved in olive oil along with fluoride in drinking water
4. Curcumin (30 mg/kg body weight)

In order to ascertain the effect of treatment, the researchers measured the malondialdehyde (MDA) content in the brains of the differently treated mice. MDA is a well-known marker of oxidative stress or damage.

As was expected, the fluoride-only treatment group showed significantly elevated MDA levels compared with the nonfluoride-treated control group. The fluoride and curcumin group saw reduced MDA levels compared with the fluoride-only group, demonstrating curcumin’s neuroprotective activity against fluoride-associated neurotoxicity.

“Our study thus demonstrate that [a] daily single dose of 120 ppm F result in highly significant increases in the [lipid peroxidation] as well as neurodegenerative changes in neuron cell bodies of selected hippocampal regions,” the researchers reported.

“Supplementation with curcumin significantly reduce the toxic effect of F to near normal level by augmenting the antioxidant defense through its scavenging property and provide an evidence of having therapeutic role against oxidative stress mediated neurodegeneration.”

Republished from GreenMedInfo.com

◇ References:

[i] Bhatnagar M, Rao P, Saxena A, Bhatnagar R, Meena P, Barbar S. Biochemical changes in brain and other tissues of young adult female mice from fluoride in their drinking water. Fluoride. 2006;39:280--4. [Ref list]

[ii] Bhatnagar M, Sukhwal P, Suhalka P, Jain A, Joshi C, Sharma D. Effects of fluoride in drinking water on NADPH-diaphorase neurons in the forebrain of mice: A possible mechanism of fluoride neurotoxicity. Fluoride. 2011;44:195--9. [Ref list]

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