Effect of Sodium Fluoride on Calcium Metabolism of Human Beings

Abstract

ALTHOUGH bones of human subjects become abnormally dense after several years of industrial exposure to fluorides^1,2, no work on the effect of fluoride on calcium balance of human beings has been carried out. Roholm¹ and others² have shown that the severity of skeletal changes is correlated approximately with the extent and duration of exposure to fluoride : moderate exposure resulting in increased density of otherwise grossly normal bone, but prolonged heavy exposure resulting in marked changes, including periosteal bone-formation and calcification of ligaments and tendons. How such complex skeletal effects are brought about is unknown; however, the microscopic appearance of depressed or absent osteoclastic activity in bones of moderately affected human beings¹ suggests that relatively low doses of fluoride may somehow depress resorption of bone.