Scheffler Stefanie, Partosch Falko, Zwintscher Ariane, Bitsch Annette
Fraunhofer ITEM, Hannover, Germany.
J Appl Toxicol. 2025 Dec;45(12):2654-2663. doi: 10.1002/jat.4865. Epub 2025 Jul 22.
European populations are chronically exposed to fluoride, as fluoride is supplemented for caries prophylaxis and is furthermore present in some food sources. As there is evidence that fluoride exposure at drinking water concentrations above 1.5 mg/L is associated with lower IQ in children, total daily intake in Europe might be close to or above this exposure level. Concerning health effects in Europe, epidemiological data are limited. Therefore, it would be beneficial to consider existing studies from non-EU countries to transfer observed effects to the exposure situation in Europe. Additionally, animal data could also deliver supporting information, if equivalent doses could be calculated. In this work, a methodology was developed to determine daily fluoride intake and excretion in Europe and align it to concentrations reported in animal and epidemiological studies. With this, a total daily intake of 2.05-mg fluoride for 3-year-old children and 3.8-mg fluoride for adults was estimated. For 3-year-olds, this value exceeds the current recommendations of fluoride intake by EFSA and even the tolerable upper intake level. The daily urinary fluoride excretion was calculated to be 0.72 mg/day, and for adults, it was 2.05 mg/day. For in vivo studies, rat exposure to fluoride drinking water concentrations of 12.5 ppm was considered to be equivalent to the daily fluoride intake in Europe. With the presented approach, equivalent doses can be applied to select international epidemiological as well as in vivo studies reflecting the fluoride exposure situation in European countries to extrapolate potential health effects.
欧洲人群长期接触氟化物，因为氟化物被添加用于预防龋齿，并且在一些食物来源中也存在。有证据表明，饮用水中氟化物浓度超过1.5毫克/升时，儿童智商较低，欧洲的每日总摄入量可能接近或高于这一暴露水平。关于欧洲的健康影响，流行病学数据有限。因此，考虑非欧盟国家的现有研究，将观察到的影响应用于欧洲的暴露情况，会有所助益。此外，如果能够计算出等效剂量，动物数据也能提供支持信息。在这项工作中，开发了一种方法来确定欧洲的每日氟化物摄入量和排泄量，并使其与动物和流行病学研究报告的浓度相一致。据此，估计3岁儿童的每日氟化物总摄入量为2.05毫克，成人则为3.8毫克。对于3岁儿童来说，这个值超过了欧洲食品安全局目前的氟化物摄入量建议，甚至超过了可耐受的每日最高摄入量水平。计算得出每日尿氟排泄量为0.72毫克/天，成人则为2.05毫克/天。对于体内研究，大鼠接触12.5 ppm的氟化物饮用水浓度被认为等同于欧洲的每日氟化物摄入量。采用本文提出的方法，可以将等效剂量应用于选定的国际流行病学以及体内研究，这些研究反映了欧洲国家的氟化物暴露情况，以推断潜在的健康影响。
