Abstract
Czerwinski and Lankosz reported that 7 out of 60 retired workers (12%) in a Polish aluminum plant, who showed evidence of low-grade skeletal fluorosis, were afflicted with gastric ulcer. Such a high incidence raises the question whether or not certain kinds of ulcers in the stomach and upper intestinal tract might be related to F-. The daily diet contains F-. A cardinal feature of acute poisoning from inorganic fluoride compounds is severe vomiting, extreme pain in the epigastrium and gastric hemorrhages. At autopsy, ulcerations of the stomach and the upper intestinal tract are almost always present. The degree of damage to the gastric mucosa, i.e., the severity of the ulceration, is dependent on the amount of the fluoride compound ingested, the tightness of the bond of the F- in the molecule of the compound and the acidity of the stomach of the individual patient.