The Retention of Fluorine When Fed as Bone and as Sodium Fluoride

Abstract

Determinations have been made of the concentration of fluorine in various commercial classifications of bones. Veal bones, both “hard” and “soft,” had less than one-tenth as much fluorine as beef bones. Pork bones had an intermediate concentration. Studies were made of the retention of fluorine from sodium fluoride, from cooked ground bone, and from bone meal. The fluorine retained from sodium fluoride varied with the total fluorine ingested in a straight line relationship. The proportion of fluorine retained from added bone decreased as the amount ingested increased. When fed at a level of 0.6mg% in the diet, the retention of ingested fluorine was the same when added as either sodium fluoride or pork or beef cooked bone. The retention when added as veal bone was only one-fourth to one-third that of sodium fluoride. The retention when added as bone meal was less than when added as cooked ground bone. Retentions of fluorine in adult rats were lower than in young growing rats but the relations stated above still held true. The concentration of fluorine in rats' incisor teeth bears a constant relation to its concentration in the rest of the carcass, and this relation does not change with changes in the amount of fluorine ingested, whether as sodium fluoride in the drinking water or as bone. When rats were placed on a diet containing 50% of a meat product with added bone, the total fluorine in the rats' carcasses reached an amount within 6 months that remained constant for up to a year and a half in the first generation, and up to one year in the second generation, the experiment being concluded at this time.