PUR filters are great at filtering out various contaminants and additives such as lead, mercury, and chlorine. They can also improve the taste and smell of local water. But what about fluoride? If you have concerns about fluoridated tap water, can PUR water filters also remove fluoride?
PUR filters can reduce but will not completely remove fluoride from drinking water. PUR filters can remove up to 50% of fluoride, but other filtration methods or water sources must be used to eliminate most or all fluoride from drinking water.
Keep reading to learn more about PUR’s effectiveness against fluoride, what concerns fluoride might cause, and how to safely remove it from drinking water in your home.
Read my articles Expert Recommendations: Pitcher Water Filters That Remove Fluoride and What Does a PUR Filter Remove – 15 Surprising Contaminants
Check out my other articles about fluoride treatment:
The Complete Guide to Fluoride Water Filters
Does Reverse Osmosis Remove Fluoride from Drinking Water? My Data
Do Brita Filters Remove Fluoride? The Answer Might Surprise You
Do ZeroWater Filters Remove Fluoride?
Do Refrigerator Filters Remove Fluoride? Surprising Answer
Table of Contents
Can PUR Filters Eliminate Fluoride?
PUR water filters are excellent at filtering out chlorine, lead, and mercury particles and can even help filter trace quantities of medication, hormones, and industrial chemicals. But unfortunately, they can not eliminate fluoride in meaningful quantities from your tap water.
PUR filters use NSA 42, NSA 53, or NSA 401 filters, meaning they can improve the taste and smell of water and trap major harmful elements. But fluoride is a bit different. It’s a much finer property and can not be eliminated from water with a standard filtration system.
PUR lists a wide range of minerals, metals, and even trace amounts of medication that it can filter from your water, but fluoride is curiously absent from this list. Does this mean that PUR is incapable of removing fluoride?
As PUR has very high standards for reporting filtered materials, the absence of fluoride on its data sheets indicates that the rate of fluoride removal by PUR is at or below 50%, an insufficient quantity to warrant mentioning as a strong selling point. So while some fluoride may be trapped, much of this element will still make it and be consumed.
While PUR is a fantastic brand and can help improve water’s overall purity and quality, you don’t want to use it to eliminate fluoride. So before we help you understand how to remove fluoride from your water, let’s run through what fluoride is, why it’s in your water, and why you may have concerns about drinking it.
Why Is There Fluoride in My Tap Water?
Fluoride has been added to water for decades as a way to fight against tooth decay and cavities. In the early 20th Century, it was discovered by a dental school graduate that children drinking naturally fluorine-rich water in Colorado had few to no cavities compared to children in most other parts of the country.
This surprising observation began a push to investigate how fluoride might be used to help prevent tooth decay in the United States, and by the 1950s, fluoride was being widely added to municipal drinking water. This was seen as a helpful and inexpensive way to automatically introduce a helpful element into the water, which could help save children’s teeth and improve their overall quality of life.
In the United States, water must contain at least 0.7 parts per million of fluoride to be considered fluoridated. While most regard this as healthy and safe, others are less certain. In recent decades, some voices in the medical and scientific communities have expressed concerns that fluoride in our water may not be necessary and can even be unsafe. So is fluoride dangerous, and do the possible risks outweigh its benefits?
Learn more about fluoride in this video.
Is Fluoride Dangerous?
While fluoride has been linked to healthier teeth, there are concerns that long-term fluoride exposure could have some health risks. Studies done over the years indicate concerning hazards, including
- Increased bone fragility
- Reduced joint mobility
- Thyroid disorder
- Reproductive harm
- Neurological damage
- Possible intellectual and behavioral issues in children
These hazards and ailments are generally linked to higher-than-average consumption of fluoride but could also arise due to long-term or multi-generational ingestion of added fluoride.
As a result, some countries have reduced or eliminated fluoride from public drinking water, citing the widespread availability of fluoride in tubes of toothpaste as sufficient for children’s tooth health. So if you, too, are worried about fluoride in drinking water, how can you safely eliminate or avoid it?
How Can I Avoid or Remove Fluoride?
The best ways to remove fluoride from drinking water are through a reverse osmosis purification system or distillation. Reverse osmosis uses a filtration system with incredibly tiny pores which trap 90 – 99% of fluoride, allowing you to nearly eliminate fluoride from your water. You would, in essence, be drinking water that contains the same levels of fluoride as naturally sourced water.
Distillation systems evaporate and then re-liquify water, leaving behind all minerals, dissolved solids, and foreign particles, including fluoride. Both of these purification systems can be found in home-use systems, though they do tend to be quite a bit more expensive than PUR filters.
Another safe way to reduce contact with fluoride is by purchasing bottled water such as Aquafina, Ice Mountain, or Dasani. These brands will contain anywhere from 0.0 to 0.1 parts per million of fluoride, whereas your local fluoridated drinking water will typically contain between 0.7 and 1.2 parts per million.
Table: Comparing PUR Filters with Other Filtration Systems for Fluoride Removal
| Filtration System | Fluoride Removal Efficiency | Additional Information |
| PUR Filters | Up to 50% | Removes major harmful elements but not fluoride in meaningful quantities. |
| Reverse Osmosis | 90-99% | Uses a filtration system with incredibly tiny pores to trap fluoride. Can be quite expensive. |
| Distillation | >99% | Evaporates and then re-liquifies water, leaving behind all minerals and dissolved solids, including fluoride. Can be quite expensive. |
| Bottled Water | 0.0-0.1 ppm | Can provide a safe way to reduce contact with fluoride but can be costly in the long run. |
Read my article about brands of bottled water without fluoride.
Conclusion
While PUR water filters are excellent at removing lead and chlorine from your water, they can not remove more than 50% of fluoride from drinking water. Fluoride has been added to many water systems since the 1940s as it is widely believed to help improve tooth health and prevent decay.
However, fluoride’s long-term use and over-exposure to the material have also been linked to possible neurological damage, liver damage, increased bone fragility, joint damage, reproductive harm, and cognitive and behavioral issues in children.
If this concerns you, the best ways to avoid fluoride in your water are through reverse osmosis or a distillation water filter system. Another way to reduce fluoride in your drinking water is to buy and consume bottled water from brands such as Ice Mountain, Dasani, and Aquafina, which contain at least 85% less fluoride than fluoridated municipal water.
Related my other articles about PUR filters:
Do PUR Filters Remove Hardness
Do PUR Filters Remove Chlorine