Abstract

Dr. Richard Daley, Dr. Lewis D. Anderson, and Dr. Richard S. Riggins discussed the effects of high fluoride diets on bone tissue. Severe restrictions of calcium intake in growing rats produces a histological picture resembling osteoporosis. In this study a control series of rats, fed adequate amounts of calcium, was compared with three test groups receiving a low-calcium diet; a low-calcium, low-fluoride diet; and a low-calcium, high-fluoride diet, respectively. In the rats fed a low-calcium, low-fluoride diet the bone was not significantly different from that of the rats of the low-calcium diet. The bone from both of these groups fractured under smaller loads than did normal bone. There was no significant difference in the loads supported by the bone from any of the three low-calcium groups; however, the heavily fluorinated bone tended to break under less stress than did bone from any other group. These findings suggest that the heavily fluorinated bone was not as strong as the bone from normal rats or from rats fed low-calcium diets without fluoride.

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