Abstract

A study was made of the relation of fluoride (F) in drinking water to bone-fracture experience, height, and weight of high school boys and young adult males. Among high school boys the number of fractures
per 100 boys varied from 21.3 to 32.4 The numbers of fractures to arms and legs per 100 boys varied from 14.0 to 18.5. These later fractures account for about 60 percent of all fractures. There was no relation of fracture experience to fluoride exposure. The average height and body weight of all the boys compared favorably with other height-weight data and accepted standards. The height-weight data were not related to fluoride exposures.

The bone-fracture experience of young adult males who were taking the physical examination at armed forces induction centers varied from about 25.0 to 30.0 fractures per 100 men averaging about 18 to 25 years of age. An experience of more than 1 fracture varied from 1.7 to 4.8 men per 100 men. While these data on bone-fracture experience for both men and boys of these ages do not permit final conclusions, they do suggest strongly that no serious impairment in skeletal performance, as might be manifest in number of broken bones, seems related to exposure to fluoride domestic waters of the concentrations
studied in this survey.

Texas men exposed to highest water-fluorine concentrations and Oklahoma men averaged 69.6 and 69.4 inches in height (weight 149.0 and 142.4 pounds), respectively. Men from rural Indiana and Indianapolis averaged 68.1 and 68.3 inches in height, 146.8 and 146.2 pounds in weight, respectively. Washington, D. C., men averaged 69.3 inches and weighed 151.2 pounds on the average. New Hampshire men were 67.3 inches tall and weighed 149.6 pounds on the average. These height-weight figures showed no relation to fluoride exposure.

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