Abstract

Workers of electrolytic departments at the Novokuznetsk aluminum plant were found to suffer not only from fluorosis (28.2) per cent), but also from degenerative-dystrophic affection of the skeleton (87.7 per cent). The workers of a control group who were not exposed to a chronic action of fluorine compounds the degenerative-dystrophic lesions of the skeleton are encountered on much rarer occasions (58.1 per cent). In workers of the aluminum plant there prevailed the affection of joints in the upper extremities, largely of a symmetric nature. Of decisive influence on the development of degenerative-dystrophic lesions of the skeleton was the service-record at the plant. A careful statistical analysis of the frequency of skeletal degenerative-dystrophic lesions in workers with fluorosis and in those who only had to deal with fluorides showed fluorosis to be of no significance in the development of degenerative-dystrophic affections of the joints and the spine.

• Related Studies :

  • Enduring fluoride health hazard for the Vesuvius area population: the case of AD 79 Herculaneum

    BACKGROUND:  The study of ancient skeletal pathologies can be adopted as a key tool in assessing and tracing several diseases from past to present times. Skeletal fluorosis, a chronic metabolic bone and joint disease causing excessive ossification and joint ankylosis, has been only rarely considered in differential diagnoses of palaeopathological

  • X-ray diagnosis of fluorine-associated arthropathy

    I. Pathological basis and X-ray signs of fluorine-associated arthropathy Long-term uptake of excessive fluorine may cause pathological changes of bone structure and bone periphery; furthermore, animal experiments and epidemiological investigations demonstrate that fluorosis may cause necrosis, degeneration and ulceration of articular cartilage, and also cause necrosis of subchondral bones, leading to

  • Skeletal fluorosis in relation to drinking water, nutritional status and living habits in rural areas of Maharashtra, India

    The present study was carried out during May 2010 to December 2011 in three villages which were randomly selected from Warora tehsil of Chandrapur district which is one of the endemic district of Maharashtra. . . . All the presently available ground water samples were collected and the mean fluoride concentration

  • Radiological analysis of fluorotic elbow arthritis

    This article has reported the radiological signs in 109 cases of fluorotic elbow arthritis: sclerosis, irregularity and discontinuity of the articular surfaces; coarsened bone striation below the articular surface, trabecular coarsening and rarefaction, sparseness of trabeculae or density changes along with areas of cystic radiolucency. The author first suggested osteophyte

  • Radiological criteria of industrial fluorosis

    The bone radiographs of 43 potroom workers in an aluminium factory, on whom the diagnosis of industrial fluorosis had been confirmed by bone biopsy, are compared with radiographs from 18 control subjects. A higher frequency of ossification of ligament, tendon, and muscle attachments is observed among the fluoride exposed subjects.

• Related FAN Content :

  • "Pre-Skeletal" Fluorosis

    As demonstrated by the studies below, skeletal fluorosis may produce adverse symptoms, including arthritic pains, clinical osteoarthritis, gastrointestinal disturbances, and bone fragility, before the classic bone change of fluorosis (i.e., osteosclerosis in the spine and pelvis) is detectable by x-ray. Relying on x-rays, therefore, to diagnosis skeletal fluorosis will invariably fail to protect those individuals who are suffering from the pre-skeletal phase of the disease. Moreover, some individuals with clinical skeletal fluorosis will not develop an increase in bone density, let alone osteosclerosis, of the spine. Thus, relying on unusual increases in spinal bone density will under-detect the rate of skeletal fluoride poisoning in a population.

  • Skeletal Fluorosis: The Misdiagnosis Problem

    It is a virtual certainty that there are individuals in the general population unknowingly suffering from some form of skeletal fluorosis as a result of a doctor's failure to consider fluoride as a cause of their symptoms. Proof that this is the case can be found in the following case reports of skeletal fluorosis written by doctors in the U.S. and other western countries. As can be seen, a consistent feature of these reports is that fluorosis patients--even those with crippling skeletal fluorosis--are misdiagnosed for years by multiple teams of doctors who routinely fail to consider fluoride as a possible cause of their disease.

  • Fluoride & Osteoarthritis

    While the osteoarthritic effects that occurred from fluoride exposure were once considered to be limited to those with skeletal fluorosis, recent research shows that fluoride can cause osteoarthritis in the absence of traditionally defined fluorosis. Conventional methods used for detecting skeletal fluorosis, therefore, will fail to detect the full range of people suffering from fluoride-induced osteoarthritis.

  • Fluoride & Rheumatoid Arthritis

    The symptoms of skeletal fluorosis can closely resemble rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and thus individuals with fluorosis can "easily be mistaken" as having RA. In addition, clinical research on fluoride-treated osteoporosis patients has found that fluoride exposure can exacerbate pre-existing RA, and recent research shows that the levels of fluoride found in the blood of the general population (19-57 ppb) are sufficient to effect an enzyme (15-lipoxygenase) implicated in the inflammatory process of RA.

  • Fluoride Magnifies Impact of Repetitive Stress on Joints

    Research has repeatedly found that fluoride's effect on the skeleton is most pronounced in the bones and joints that undergo the greatest strain. Indeed, both the symptoms of fluorosis (i.e., joint pain and stiffness) as well as the radiological findings (e.g., exostoses, interosseuous membrane calcification) have been found to occur earliest, and most severely, in the joints