Alec Noble, of Tamworth, writes to explain his theory that bottled water could be behind the increase in dental decay in children.
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Last Monday’s Leader had the headline “Rot is setting in”, highlighting the incidences of tooth decay in children.
More accurately it should have been “Rot returns”.
This is a sad development and an unnecessary one.
When I came to Tamworth, decay was rampant and sugar and diet was regarded as the principal cause – school holiday breaks were the busiest in dental surgeries.
In 1963 Tamworth introduced fluoridation to the water supply – just the second community in NSW to do so.
People did not think their teeth were going to last very long and extraction of all teeth before the age of 40 was very common and I used to make a set of full upper and lower dentures at least once a week.
By the end of the 1980s we could be confident that dental decay and all of its results could be conquered, but the recurrence of decay has now seen a recurrence of the old disease.
Why is this so?
There is more health education than there used to be and treatments are far more sophisticated.
The principal cause is one I have been predicting for some years, and that is the popularity for bottled water.
For whatever reason I do not know, as the water is expensive, it is advertised as pure, but no fluoride!
Prior to 1963, multiple visits to the dentist had become a necessity for mass extraction and fillings – both permanent and deciduous teeth.
By the time I was due for retirement in 1990, the incidence of dental decay had become almost a rarity and the nature of visits to t he dentist changed from continuing fillings and extractions to cosmetic and preventative operations, oral health lectures and the appearance of speciality treatment such as orthodontics and crowns.
Everyone still had sugary sweet drinks and biscuits and yet it had become common for teenagers to have only their first visit as a visit to an orthodontist and indeed, a first visit to a dentist could be when wisdom teeth were troublesome.
There were only three orthodontists registered for the whole state of NSW in 1950.
Why was this so?
Because there were insufficient natural teeth still un-extracted.
I find it difficult to understand why knowledgeable, trained oral health professionals cannot ask about the popularity of bottled water.
Drunk by the glass, itsupplies the needed small quantity (literally a drop in a litre) of fluoride on a daily basis, particularly needed under the age of 12, giving life-long reduction in decay.
Why not drink the free treated water supplied by the city council?
