Fluorosis: A Psychologically Distressing Cosmetic Condition

Abstract

Fluoride is the thirteenth most abundant element on the earth's crust and is a chemical ion of the element fluorine with one extra electron that gives it a negative charge. Fluoride is found naturally in soil, water, foods and several minerals such as fluorapatite and fluorite (MNT et al., 2013). Fluoride concentration in sea water averages to about 1.3 ppm, whereas in fresh water supplies, the natural range is typically between 0.01 and 0.3 ppm. In some parts of the world, freshwater contains fluoride levels, which are dangerous and can lead to health problems (MNT et al., 2013). In the early 1930s, scientists found that people who were brought up in areas with naturally fluoridated water had up to two-third fewer tooth cavities than did those living in are as where the water was not fluoridated. On the basis of several studies since then, fluoride is added to water supplies with low fluoride levels to reduce tooth decay cases (MNT et al., 2013). Fluorosis is endemic in at least twenty-five countries across the globe. The total number of people affected is in the range of tens of millions in India and seventeen out of the thirty-two states have been identified as endemic. Around the globe, countries like Mexico, Central and Western China, Australia, Africa, Argentina, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and South Africa are badly affected due to drinking fluoridated ground water and breathing air-borne fluorides, released from the burning of fluoridated-laden coal, and such cases are on the rise in the world. Some fluoride compounds in the earth's upper crust are soluble in water and the fluoride is found both in surface and in ground waters and the natural concentration of fluoride depends on the geological, chemical and physical characters of the aquifer, the porosity, acidity of the soil, rocks, temperature, the action of other elements, the depth of the wells, and because of this large variation, the concentration of fluoride in the ground waters varies, requiring defluoridation before use (WHO et al., 1984).