Spencer, Sarah, Lowery, David, Peckham, Stephen (2014) Are high fluoride levels in drinking water associated with hypothyroidism prevalence in England? In: ISEE-EUROPE 2014 Young Researchers Conference on Environmental Epidemiology, 20-12 October 2014, Barcelona. (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:48365)
The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided. | |
Official URL: http://www.creal.cat/isee-europe/files/ISEE_Young_... |
Abstract
Background and aims
Studies have suggested that there is a possible link between fluoride exposure and thyroid function.
The aim of this study was to examine whether there are differences in the prevalence of
hypothyroidism between populations in England living in areas with high and low levels of fluoride in
drinking water.
Methods
We used a cross-sectional study design using secondary data to develop a linear regression model of
predictive factors for hypothyroidism prevalence at practice level using fluoride levels in drinking
water, hypothyroidism prevalence data, the proportion of registered patients that were female and
the proportion of older patients (aged 55+ and 65+). We compared the hypothyroidism prevalence
of GP practices in areas with fluoride levels ?0.7mg/l to those with fluoride levels <0.3mg/l. We also
analysed for between group differences of hypothyroidism prevalence for two metropolitan areas:
West Midlands Metropolitan County, a wholly fluoridated area; and Greater Manchester, a nonfluoridated
area.
Results
Of the 8,020 practices in England, prevalence data for 7,946 practices (99.1%) were used to develop
the linear regression model. The model accounted for 52% of the observed variance and was
significant. It predicted that hypothyroidism prevalence will increase as fluoride levels increase after
controlling for age and gender. The comparison of high and low fluoride areas showed a significantly
higher prevalence of hypothyroidism in GP practices in the high fluoride areas. The comparison of
West Midlands Metropolitan County and Greater Manchester showed a higher mean practice level
prevalence of hypothyroidism in the West Midlands, although the result was not statistically
significant.
Conclusions
The findings of the study show that higher levels of fluoride in drinking water are associated with a
higher prevalence of hypothyroidism. This observation provides the first population level
confirmation of the findings of previous studies suggesting that ingestion of fluoride suppresses
thyroid function.
Item Type: | Conference or workshop item (Speech) |
---|---|
Uncontrolled keywords: | Hypothyroidism, thyroid function, fluoride, drinking water, artificial fluoridation |
Subjects: |
R Medicine > R Medicine (General) > R729 Types of medical practice > R729.5.G4 General practice R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine |
Divisions: | Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research > Centre for Health Services Studies |
Depositing User: | Stephen Peckham |
Date Deposited: | 11 May 2015 11:23 UTC |
Last Modified: | 17 Aug 2022 10:58 UTC |
Resource URI: | https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/48365 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes) |
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