Dentistry: Fluorides for Better Bites

Dentists have long been convinced that fluoridated drinking water can cut cavities in children's teeth by 60% or more. But fluorides may be even more valuable than that. At the annual session of the American Dental Association in San Francisco last week, Dr. Thomas K. Barber, associate head of Pedodontics at the University of Illinois College of Dentistry, reported that fluoridated drinking water can help eradicate bad bite—an affliction that affects more than half the 50 million children in the U.S.

Dr. Barber's statistics came from a study conducted in Evanston, Ill., after ten years of fluoridating its water. Among Evanston children in the 6-to-8 age bracket, said Dr. Barber, malocclusions were down 20%, while those in the 12-to-14 group had 17% fewer bad bites than teen-agers in nonfluoridated communities. Fluorides, explained Dr. Barber, reduce tooth decay in the important first permanent molars; early loss of these teeth may lead to bite abnormalities and eventual braces or similar tooth-straightening appliances.

The Evanston study complements similar figures from the neighboring New York towns of fluoridated Newburgh and fluoride-free Kingston. Of Newburgh's teenagers, 35.2% have normal bites, v. only 12% for their Kingston counterparts. Significantly, Kingston kids lost nine times as many permanent teeth, six times as many lower first molars. Reasoned Dr. Barber: "The benefits of fluoridation can be viewed indirectly as a factor in the reduction of malocclusion."