Could Fluoride Be Making Your Pet Sick

In some places fluoride is added to drinking water to help prevent cavities in children. Fluoride is added to toothpaste but there is a warning not to swallow it. Fluoride is also added to some pet foods.

How Fluoride could be making pets sick.

Many dogs and cats that have or have had arthritis, spinal and skeletal deformities may actually have skeletal fluorosis. But because fluoride isn't seen as something that can cause harm in animals most Veterinarians don't even consider this.

Most Veterinarians are not aware that a lot of dog and cat foods contain fluoride and high fluoride levels in pets can cause them health problems. While some scientists who have done research on feed animals know that high levels of fluoride in animals can cause osteoarthritis, kidney disease and even cancer. No one has done research to find out if the fluoride in their water and food is what is causing some of these problems.

Where is my pet getting the fluoride from?

According to the NHF "A low-fluoride commercial dog food contains 40 - 60 parts per million of fluoride. A high-fluoride dog food can contain up to 460 parts per million of fluoride."

Fluoride is an active ingredient in many pesticides and rodenticides. According to Scorecard.org fluoride is found in pesticides such as Tie-Guard, Cobra Salts, Ritter's Roach Powder, Triple-X ant, Roach and Waterbug Powder, Scramo, Robinson Roach Destroyer as well as many, many more.

What you should know.

Pet food manufacturers are not required to list the fluoride levels in pet food.

The primary source of fluoride in pet foods is from mineral supplements that are added to the pet food.

Some of the words to look for in pet foods are: Defluorinated Phosphate rock. While it says 'defluorinated' it still retains some of the fluoride and is mainly found in the more pricey pet foods.

Raw Soft Phosphate Rock, Mono and Tricalcium Phosphate. The less expensive pet foods are more likely to use these types of fluoride additives. These are made from a mixture of Phosphate Acid and Calcium Carbonate.

If you see these additives on the ingredients list, it might be time to take a look into another form of pet food. Pet food manufacturers might be able to help keep pets healthier just by switching to a different mineral supplement that doesn't contain fluoride.

An easy way to make sure your pet isn't getting fluoride from their drinking water is to fill their bowls, water bottles ect...not from tap water but from bottles spring water instead.

Sources:

http://www.thenhf.com/fluoridation_46.htm

http://www.scorecard.org/chemical-profiles/pesticides.tcl?edf_substance_id=7681-49-4