Why your drinking water could leave your children “not smiling”

Are you a resident of Nairobi City or the greater Nairobi Metropolis area? Have you been attracted to your current residence by the water reliability offered by the backup borehole supply? Caution! This is for you.

Reports have generally indicated that borehole water within areas near the Great Rift Valley have a high content of salts. Now, that may sound like normal table salt and its cousins. One of those closely related salts is rarely discussed; fluoride. About half of the boreholes within Nairobi and its environs may contain high Fluoride levels in the water.

Fluoride is the salt that Dentists love and loathe in equal measure. In small amounts, fluoride helps teeth during formation to ensure they are strong. It is also used in toothpaste, and when applied on your teeth regularly during tooth brushing, fluoride helps to keep off bacteria that can cause tooth decay. Even where bacteria had already started to form their acids to attack the tooth surface, fluoride will neutralize these acids and repair the early damage caused by the acid attack.

However, when fluoride is available in large quantities, it damages the ability of cells that lay down the tooth structure. This results in more porous teeth than is desired, with poor resistance to acid attacks. Such teeth will pick up stains from all the foods we eat, giving them the characteristic brown –black color that we learn to associate with Dental Fluorosis. Although not visible, large amounts of fluoride in drinking water interfere with bone in a similar manner, resulting in bones that may be brittle, stiff joints among other damages in what is called Skeletal Fluorosis.

In summary, before you lift that chalice to toast and celebrate your unending water flow buoyed by borehole water supply, be cautious. Sample and undertake a mineral content analysis of your domestic water supply. Be sure your water does not exceed a fluoride content of I milligram of fluoride per litre for best results of strong, healthy teeth. Excess of 1.5 milligrams per liter of Fluoride will most likely lead to some level of dental fluorosis for children between the ages of 1-7 years. All smiles are important; let’s safeguard them.