Experts question benefits of fluoride-free toothpaste

Dental health experts worry that more people are using toothpaste that skips the most important ingredient—fluoride—and leaves them at a greater risk of cavities.

Most toothpastes already contain fluoride. While health authorities recognize fluoride as a cavity blocker, the internet is dotted with claims, often from “natural” toothpaste marketers and alternative medicine advocates, that fluoride-free toothpaste also prevents cavities.

Dental authorities disagree.

“It’s really important to debunk this idea that brushing your teeth stops decay. You need to have the fluoride,” said Damien Walmsley, a scientific adviser to the British Dental Association and dentistry professor at the University of Birmingham.

That view was underscored this week by an article in the dental journal Gerodontology that reviewed the scientific literature on cavities. Its primary conclusion is that, without fluoride, oral hygiene efforts have “no impact” on cavity rates.

The idea that just brushing teeth doesn’t stop cavities has largely been accepted among individual researchers for decades, but not always by the public. Dentists generally recommend fluoride for cavity fighting, but even some of them continue to believe that the mechanics of wiping your teeth clean of plaque also reduces cavities. The review findings, published Monday, gave pause to at least one dentist.

“It violates certain principles we’ve been taught and that we teach and that we believe,” said Richard Niederman, a dentist and professor at New York University who saw an advance copy of the study and found the findings credible. “What it says to me is that the toothbrush is just a delivery system.”