Effect of excessive exposure to sodium fluoride on composition and crystallinity of equine bone tumors.

The research investigates the impact of long-term sodium fluoride consumption on the composition and crystal structure of bone tumors in horses with a specific skeletal disorder. It was found that fluoride accumulates more in both healthy and tumorous bones when consumed excessively, and it notably changes the crystal structure of both types of bone.

Research Methodology

• The research involved doping horses with a skeletal disease, hereditary multiple exostoses (HME), with sodium fluoride to assess whether the mineral affects how the disease develops. HME primarily impacts endochondral bones during skeletal development, giving a basis to compare fluoride’s influence on normal and compromised bone formation processes.
• Researchers exposed horses to sodium fluoride for 20 months, with the dose set at 5mg per kilogram of body weight. As a comparison, horses with HME not given fluoride were used as controls.
• Rib biopsies were harvested from both groups of horses so that the specimens could undergo chemical analysis and x-ray diffraction. This allowed for the structure and composition of the bones to be scrutinized, thus detecting any influence of fluoride.

Findings

• The study found that a horse fed fluoride for the set period had fluoride content in its rib approximately 20-30 times higher than that of a control horse.
• This indicates that fluoride consumption results in the element becoming heavily concentrated in bone tissues.
• Bone tumors were discovered to have higher fluoride content than normal bones in both control and fluoride-fed horses. This could imply that the diseased tissues may be more absorbent of this mineral.
• With regards to the calcium-to-phosphorus (Ca/P) ratio, the fluoride intake seemed to have a minimal effect. There were no notable differences in this ratio between tumorous and healthy ribs.
• X-ray diffraction studies revealed that the crystallinity, which is the crystal size and perfection, of the mineral apatite in bone tumors from the control horse was less than that of the normal bone from the same rib.
• However, fluoride is seen to bring a significant change in the crystallinity at both normal and tumorous bone sites. This leads to the confirmation that fluoride remarkably alters the crystal structure of the bones. The crystallinity of the apatite in bone tumors of the fluoride-fed horse exceeded that of the normal bone in the control horse.

Conclusions

• While the investigation found remarkable changes to the bone’s crystal structure because of fluoride exposure, the results showed no drastic fluoride-induced changes on a gross or radiographic level in the bone tumors.
• This indicates that while fluoride may have a significant impact at a chemical and microscopic level, its effects may not always translate to observable changes in the physical structure or appearance of the bones.