Why New Zealanders are getting fatter

Press Release
Fluoride Action Network NZ
www.fannz.org.nz
18th October 2013

Why New Zealanders are getting fatter – NZ Dietitians embarrassingly ignorant

Hypothyroidism  (under active thyroid) is one of the most common causes of weight gain and depression in New Zealand.  Prescriptions for thyroid medication have sky-rocketed over the past 40 years, with thyroxine now being the 19th most commonly prescribed medication.

The NZ Dietitians Society have made the outrageous suggestion that fluoride chemicals should be forcibly added to all water supplies in New Zealand whether people like it or not.  This is an embarrassing display of ignorance from a group purporting to know about health and how our diet affects us.

Fluoride is well known to affect the thyroid. In fact, doctors in Germany, France and Argentina[1] successfully used pharmaceutical grade fluoride to treat hyperthyroidism (over active thyroid) for many years up until the 1950s when safer medications became available.  Doctors prescribed 2 – 5 mg per day of fluoride to patients to lower their thyroid, the same level that many New Zealanders are exposed to as a result of water fluoridation. 

In 2006 the US National Research Council found that when iodine is inadequate, as little as 0.6mg fluoride per day may adversely affect the thyroid, this is less than what is contained in one litre of fluoridated water.  Unfortunately, New Zealanders are known to have very low iodine levels and are therefore hugely susceptible to the thyroid lowering effects of fluoride.

The Dietitians obviously have no idea about how fluoride is now known to benefit teeth (from surface contact only, not from swallowing) nor any of the negative health effects, especially the effect on the thyroid.  The fluoride chemicals added to the water are not “natural” and are definitely not “beneficial nutrients”.

Many people who visit a dietitian for help with their weight problems have an under active thyroid, which could actually be caused or exacerbated by fluoride chemicals added to their drinking water.

It is therefore, no wonder, New Zealanders are getting fatter when the very people charged with helping them with their diets, appear to be parroting the Ministry of Health spin on fluoridation and seem not to have done one iota of research into the subject.

END

Mary Byrne
National Coodrinator
[1] http://www.fluoridealert.org/studies/thyroid03/

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