Cochrane does not make clinical recommendations, instead it provides unbiased and high-quality health evidence so that health decisions, policies, and clinical guidelines can be informed by the best available evidence. ‘Cochrane Evidence in Everyday Life’ series collects stories about individuals, families, and carers making health decisions based on Cochrane evidence. Each piece in the series collects stories around the personal impact that one Cochrane Review has made.
Year published: 2019
Review Group: Cochrane Oral Health
Conclusions:
There are benefits of using fluoride toothpaste at certain strengths to prevent tooth decay when compared with non-fluoride toothpaste. The stronger the fluoride concentration, the more decay is prevented. For many of the comparisons of different strengths of toothpaste, the findings are uncertain and could be challenged by further research. The choice of fluoride toothpaste for young children should be balanced against the risk of fluorosis.
Plain language summary: available in English, Spanish, French, Croatian, Japanese, Malay, and Polish, and Russian.
Note worthy mentions: Blog post: Which strength of fluoride in toothpaste is most effective?
User Story:
"My name is Netzahualpilli Delgado. As pediatrician and professor of evidence based dentistry in our faculty at University of Guadalajara in México, many parents of our pediatric patients had expressed the concerns about safety and effectiveness of fluoride toothpaste for their children daily oral hygiene compared with non-fluoride toothpaste. A comprehensive systematic review of fluoride tooth pastes formulations by Cochrane Oral Health has helped to clear patients doubts about using toothpaste with fluoride. It also has let our dental students make decisions with evidence, raise awareness of prescribing the appropriate toothpaste by age, and the ways to help preventing caries and decay of the tooth of young children and adolescents. This Cochrane evidence is setting a greater circle of informed consumers of oral health information in México - from patients to the next generation of dentists."
Would you like to add your story of using this or another Cochrane review? Please contact mumoquit@cochrane.org to share your story.
