Renal clearance of fluoride in a steady state condition in man: influence of urinary flow and pH changes by diet.

In order to study fluoride renal clearance, four subjects were given 3 mg fluoride as sodium fluoride tablets every 6 hrs for 60 hrs during two separate periods - during production of acid urine induced by a protein rich diet and during production of alkaline urine obtained by giving a vegetarian diet. Plasma and urine were collected every third hour for 72 hours during each experiment. In the protein rich diet period urinary pH was significantly lower than when the subjects were maintained on the vegetarian diet. Lower urinary output of fluoride during the protein rich diet experiment was recorded, however, the difference was not significant. Plasma fluoride at steady state was almost the same during both experiments. Renal fluoride clearance was significantly correlated to urinary pH in both types of experiments. When renal fluoride clearance was plotted versus urinary flow, the correlation was only significant during alkaline conditions. The average renal clearance was not significantly different between the two sets of experiments. It may be concluded, that pH and diuresis both influences fluoride renal clearance. Moreover, the results suggests that dietary components as such, influence renal clearance of fluoride in some way or another.