Summation - Fluoride & Rheumatoid Arthritis:

Excessive fluoride exposure produces an arthritic disease called skeletal fluorosis.

The early symptoms of skeletal fluorosis can resemble the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, and confusion/misdiagnosis of the two diseases has been reported by scientists investigating fluorosis.

Some clinical research on fluoride-treated osteoporosis pateints has found that higher doses fluoride may exacerbate pre-existing rheumatoid arthritis.

General Info - Rheumatoid Arthritis:

"Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic disease, mainly characterized by inflammation of the lining, or synovium, of the joints. It can lead to long-term joint damage, resulting in chronic pain, loss of function and disability."
SOURCE: Arthritis Foundation

"The effects of rheumatoid arthritis can vary from person to person. In fact, there is some growing belief that RA isn’t one disease, but it may be several different diseases that share commonalities."
SOURCE: Arthritis Foundation

"Rheumatoid arthritis can start in any joint, but it most commonly begins in the smaller joints of the fingers, hands and wrists. Joint involvement is usually symmetrical, meaning that if a joint hurts on the left hand, the same joint will hurt on the right hand. In general, more joint erosion indicates more severe disease activity.
SOURCE: Arthritis Foundation

Frequency - Rheumatoid Arthritis:

"Approximately 2.1 million people in the United States, or 1 percent of the population, have rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It can affect anyone, including children (see Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis), but 70 percent of people with RA are women. Onset usually occurs between 30 and 50 years of age."
SOURCE: Arthritis Foundation

Excerpts from the Scientific Literature: Fluoride & Rheumatoid Arthritis: (back to top)

"This case documents the repeated aggravation of rheumatoid arthritis following sodium fluoride treatment (7 mg of fluoride, 3 times a day). Although these data do not conclusively prove that sodium fluoride caused the worsening of our patient's rheumatoid arthritis, the reproducibility of this effect on three occasions suggests that there is a high probability that sodium fluoride has a causative role in this previously unreported complication. Moreover, there are experimental data that suggest that one might expect sodium fluoride to increase the activity of rheumatoid arthritis."
SOURCE: Duell PB, Chesnut CH. (1991). Exacerbation of rheumatoid arthritis by sodium fluoride treatment of osteoporosis. Archives of Internal Medicine 151:783-4.

"The most frequent symptoms in those exposed >6 yr were low back pain, painful knee, elbow, and hip... Analysis of workers' complaints showed no specific pain or other symptom that we could refer only to fluorosis...The only characteristic feature would be multiple-joint involvement in the case of fluorosis. This would differentitate fluorosis from monoarticular osteoarthritis (OA), but unfortunately not from multiple-joint osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis (RA)."
SOURCE: Czerwinski E, et al. (1988). Bone and joint pathology in fluoride-exposed workers. Archives of Environmental Health 43: 340-343.

"Although skeletal fluorosis has been studied intensely in other countries for more than 40 years, virtually no research has been done in the U.S. to determine how many people are afflicted with the earlier stages of the disease, particularly the preclinical stages. Because some of the clinical symptoms mimic arthritis, the first two clinical phases of skeletal fluorosis could be easily misdiagnosed... Even if a doctor is aware of the disease, the early stages are difficult to diagnose."
SOURCE: Hileman B. (1988). Fluoridation of water.Questions about health risks and benefits remain after more than 40 years. Chemical and Engineering News August 1, 1988, 26-42.

"[I]t is postulated that fluoride activates the calcification of cartilage...Thus it would be interesting to investigate the effect of fluoride on the evolution of joint alterations in rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthrosis."
SOURCE: Bang S, et al. (1985). Distribution of fluoride in calcified cartilage of a fluoride-treated osteoporotic patient. Bone 6: 207-210.

"Early bone fluorosis is not clinically obvious; often the only complaints of young adults are vague pains in the small joints of the hands, feet, and lower back. Such cases may be misdiagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis or ankylosing spondylitis."
SOURCE: Smith GE. (1985). Repetitive Strain Injury, or Incipient Skeletal Fluorosis? (Letter.) New Zealand Medical Journal 98:328..

"In early stages, fluorosis is usually associated only with stiffness, backache, and joint pains which may suggest the diagnosis of rheumatism, rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and osteomalacia. At this stage the radiological findings of skeletal fluorosis may not be evident and therefore most of these cases are either misdiagnosed for other kinds of arthritis or the patients are treated symptomatically for pains of undetermined diagnosis (PUD). The majority of our patients had received treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis before they came under our observation."
SOURCE: Teotia SPS, et al. (1976). Symposium on the Non-Skeletal Phase of Chronic Fluorosis: The Joints. Fluoride 9: 19-24.

"Whereas dental fluorosis is easily recognized, the skeletal involvement is not clinically obvious until the advanced stage of crippling fluorosis... Such early cases are usually in young adults whose only complaints are vague pains noted most frequently in the small joints of the hands and feet, in the knee joints and in the joints of the spine. These cases are frequent in the endemic area and may be misdiagnosed as rheumatoid or osteo arthritis."
SOURCE: Singh A, Jolly SS. (1970). Chronic toxic effects on the skeletal system. In: Fluorides and Human Health. World Health Organization. pp. 238-249.

In the early stages of skeletal fluorosis, the "only complaints are vague pains noted most frequently in the small joints of hands and feet, the knee joints and those of the spine. Such cases are frequent in the endemic area and may be misdiagnosed as rheumatoid or osteoarthritis. Such symptoms may be present prior to the development of definite radiological signs. A study of the incidence of rheumatic disorders in areas where fluoridation has been in progress for a number of years would be of interest."
SOURCE: Singh A, et al. (1963). Endemic fluorosis. Epidemiological, clinical and biochemical study of chronic fluoride intoxication in Punjab. Medicine 42: 229-246

Synonyms & Keywords - Rheumatoid Arthritis: (back to top)

"RA, autoimmune disease, carpal tunnel syndrome, connective tissue disease, joint disease, joint stiffness, joint swelling, systematic disease, immune disorder, inflammation, inflammatory disorder, osteoporosis, rheumatic disease, rheumatoid nodules, synovitis, synovium, vasculitic nodules, vasculitis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, JRA."
SOURCE: eMedicine.com