Credit: © iStockphoto/Thinkstock

A new Australian study1 has provided further evidence that drinking fluoridated water can help prevent tooth decay in adults of all ages, regardless of whether or not they began drinking it in childhood.

Using a nationally representative sample of 3,779 adults from the 2004-2006 Australian National Survey of Adult Oral Health, researchers compared the number of decayed, missing and filled teeth in those born before 1960 (pre-fluoridation) and those born between 1960-1990, when the implementation of fluoride in drinking water became widespread, covering 67% of the population. The percentage of each participant's lifetime in which the public water supply had been fluoridated was then calculated. Adults who had spent more than 75% of their lifetime exposed to fluoridation had significantly less tooth decay than those who had less than 25% lifetime exposure, even if exposure started post-childhood.

This study adds to the corpus of evidence pointing towards the advantages of long-term exposure to water fluoridation and dispels the myth that fluoride in water only benefits those consuming it from birth.