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Comment by spacephysics | Hacker News Reader

Hot take: why don’t we stop the root cause of the problem, instead of the insestuous habit of layering on symptom management on top of symptom management.

Stop giving kids these insanely high levels of sugar. No soda is a great start.

Same thorn in my side is this completely crazy trend that this new life-long injection Ozempic/Wegovy is being suggested for kids 12 and up. Like what? It also atrophies muscle, tendons, and bones.

I hope with the next generation of leaders, we stop this madness of blindly trusting big pharma and corporations and ask where the money trail goes, and what may actually be best for our kids and loved ones.

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Liquid sugar is bad for teeth, but nowhere near as bad as something like potato chips. Food remnants that are high in carbs that get stuck in your teeth and then break down into simple sugars cause way more problems.

Nobody is getting so much food stuck on their teeth that it's having a significant impact on their overall diet and metabolism.

If you want to go to root cause how about teaching kids that simple carbs and sugar are exactly the same as far as the body is concerned. Let alone the fact that most simple carbs come with added sugar on top of that.

Personally I didn't really understand that properly until either my late twenties or early thirties.

> why don’t we stop the root cause of the problem, instead of the insestuous habit of layering on symptom management on top of symptom management.

Super simple answer: one requires everyone change their individual habits. Difficulty - very hard. The other requires no change at all on the individual level. Difficulty - very easy.

Be careful with falling into the "public health initiatives are just a bandaid" trap. I was going to say you probably wouldn't approach a pandemic by telling everyone to eat more healthfully but considering your last sentence, maybe you would have argued for that approach.

A sugar tax would have the same effect, it's a single change that's very easy to implement. 10,000% should do.

Cheap sugar substitutes will be used. Long term health effects are not clear.

What you want is a calorie tax. Possibly a liquid calorie tax.

Or just every calorie?

The problem is sugar tastes good. Taxing processed sugary foods will certainly help, but are you also going to tax, say, sugar in a bag? If so, you have effectively banned Grandma's cookies. Do you want to be known as the politician who effectively banned home-cooked baked goods?

So why don’t we just put fluoride in the excessively sugary stuff.

Coca Cola, more fluoride, same classic taste!

Banning all unhealthy factory-produced corn syrup food also doesn’t require people to change their habits. Just a legal ban, maybe a gradual one.

It’s probably worth noting that genetics is probably a significantly big factor than affects cavities, similar to lots of other stuff. Some folks can eat sugar foods and not brush twice a day and have no issues, while others who even floss daily end up with bad teeth.

Not saying you shouldn’t reduce sugar intake, that’s not my point - but - factors like genetics are very important too, and fluoride might help for such people.

So this may be useful to someone - I lost that genetic lottery and had lots of issues / most teeth patched up / painful cleans. Until recently, when I moved to a new dentist who said "oh, you've got lots of calcium buildup, you should be taking vit D+K2". This sorted out most of my issues almost immediately. I wish someone told me that 30 years ago...

So apparently there's a few things that trivially impact your dental health besides usual cleaning and few people seem to know about them.

Novamin is another “dental secret”. US toothpaste doesn’t have it, but studies consistently show it’s more effective than just fluoridated toothpaste and protecting teeth from decay.

You would think that in a “capitalist, free-market” such as the United States, an innovation with a clear and pronounced benefit over the status quo would take the marketplace by storm and quickly become the new status quo.

Last I checked, you can get Sensodyne with Novamin toothpaste on Amazon, but it does come from Canada.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7068624/

"Review shows that Novamin has significantly less clinical evidence to prove its effectiveness as a remineralization agent in treating both carious and non-carious lesion. Hence, better designed clinical trials should be carried out in the future before definitive recommendations can be made."

I've read a few research papers that say essentially the opposite. I think you can find a study that supports your side most of the time.

The linked article is a meta analysis.

I think we should be skeptical of such articles especially when they go against what probably most articles say about a topic/hypothesis.

I don’t know enough about chemistry or dentistry to really say beyond that which side is the correct side

I’ve always found this guy’s work interesting.

https://www.lotusdental.com.au/post/effect-of-western-diet-o...

Previously, I’ve found the anti-fluoride argument to be a little shaky but I’m a scientist and some of the data in the report might make me reconsider that stance. That’s what science is. I must say that personally I haven’t drunk fluoride in my tap for decades really, since I use a reverse osmosis filter for my tap. So if you don’t want to drink fluoride you don’t have to.

I haven’t noticed more cavities in periods when I don’t drink fluoride vs when I do. But I brush my teeth twice a day (teeth bathed in fluoride toothpaste residue) and go to the dentist every six months. I don’t really have cavities.

I found this paper an interesting history on water fluoridation-

Debating Water Fluoridation Before Dr. Strangelove

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4504307

People love treating symptoms because humans are notoriously shortsighted

Not to mention there's a lot of money behind the real causes

there's money on every side of every issue. The people that lean hard on the "follow the money" angle are almost always those that only acknowledge it happening on the side they disagree with.

Sugar is everywhere in everything. Reducing kids intake of sugar requires a level of vigilance bordering on isolation from society, especially since human children seem genetically programmed to crave sugar and simple carbohydrates. If it’s around most kids will eat little else.

I kind of remember this from being a kid. Until I was a teen anything with complex or savory tastes was absolutely disgusting. Only carbs, sugars, and very simple flavors and textures seemed edible. It changed when I got to around 12-14 when suddenly a salad was okay and some vegetables started to taste good. Another few years and I’d eat all kinds of things. Became a bit of a foodie by college.

It’s got to be some relic of early hominid evolution. My speculation is that in nature there are a lot of savory things that are toxic. So kids have a natural aversion to them until they are old enough to have learned the tribal knowledge about what is okay to eat. Sweet and carby things are usually safe to eat. If a kid eats random berries or grains thats probably okay. Random mushrooms or plants might kill them. Random sources of protein can also contain parasites or nasty infections.

> Reducing kids intake of sugar requires a level of vigilance bordering on isolation from society

No, it requires… parenting and education? And stopping children from being exposed to ads for sugary crap 12 hours a day.

Habits are a huge part of it. Kids who “would only eat sugar if they could” are already used to consuming lots of sugar. They will definitely not starve themselves to death if no sugar/carbs are easily available in the house.

Here in the Netherlands a lot of (but not all) kids choose to snack on cucumbers etc and are quite reserved in how much candy they eat. School doesn’t allow high-carb foods. Parties will have fries, lemonade and cake, no soda or infinite amounts of candy. Mine is approaching the early teens and hasn’t ever drank soda, without suffering any peer pressure (yet).

Is this a worse is better argument? I'm having a hard time understanding how it makes this a better solution than fluoridated water. It sounds like a moral argument against sugar rather than a practical solution to fight tooth decay.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “worse is better”. Fluoridation came about as a stop gap for bad dental hygiene and eating habits. We have all the resources to make this a non-issue in most of the world. I don’t consider this a moral argument, it’s a public health issue.

I see this like mandating using a helmet and HANS device when driving drunk. Surely it might help reduce casualties, but is not addressing the problem that people are inflicting unto themselves.

Some dutch people peer-pressured me into trying Rivella ;)

Dutch children love their bottles of apple juice and dutch teens love a can of chocolate milk, but I have to agree that the portion sizes of these are less than half of what you would get in the US.

  > Reducing kids intake of sugar requires a level of vigilance bordering on isolation from society,

You are a good parent for recognizing this and speaking up.

This is why I praise my child and treat him (not with sweets) every time that he turns down candy at friends' houses or parties. When the parent stands between the child and sweets, he is considered neurotic by other parents. When the child stands his ground, he is praised. I've been fortunate that all three of my children have stood with me on this stance.

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