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But does it work? Health Conditions Discover Plan Connect. Medically reviewed by Debra Rose Wilson, Ph. Other treatments When to see a doctor Takeaway Share on Pinterest.
What does the pineal gland do? Why does calcification occur? What are the symptoms? Can you decalcify your pineal gland? Does it hurt to try? Other treatments. When to see a doctor. The bottom line. Read this next. Medically reviewed by Femi Aremu, PharmD.
What Are Glands in the Body? Medically reviewed by Alana Biggers, M. Specifically, median to 75th percentile water fluoride levels ranged from 0. The median IQR for plasma fluoride was 0. Regression results for water fluoride and sleep outcomes are presented in Table 4. Specifically, each IQR i. Specifically, each IQR increase in water fluoride was associated with 0.
We did not observe any other interactions between fluoride and sex in relation to sleep outcomes. Plasma fluoride concentrations were not significantly associated with any of the other sleep outcome measures examined herein uncorrected ps: 0. Cotinine-adjusted associations between plasma fluoride and sleep outcomes are presented in Additional file 2 : Table S4. Median to 75th percentile serum cotinine concentrations ranged from 0.
The findings from survey-weighted covariate adjusted models did not change appreciably with the addition of serum cotinine as a covariate. To our knowledge, this is the first published study to explore the relationship between fluoride exposure and sleep patterns in either humans or animals.
We found that each 0. This remained significant after stringent corrections for multiple comparisons. Specifically, higher water fluoride concentrations were associated with higher odds of participants reporting snorting, gasping or stopping breathing while sleeping at night. This suggests that fluoride exposure at population-relevant levels may be a risk factor for sleep disturbances; however, additional studies are needed to explore this possibility, given the scarcity of data on this topic.
Our findings also showed that fluoride exposure may be associated with shifts in the sleep-wake cycle, as higher water fluoride concentrations were associated with later weekday bedtime and wake time, but not sleep duration.
Specifically, for each 0. Additionally, there was some indication that adolescents with higher water fluoride concentrations may experience more frequent daytime sleepiness; however, future research is needed to explore this possibility. The high accumulation of fluoride in pineal gland hydroxyapatite among those chronically exposed [ 9 , 10 , 11 ] points to a plausible mechanism by which fluoride may influence sleep patterns.
In adults, pineal gland fluoride concentrations have been shown to strongly correlate with degree of pineal gland calcification [ 9 , 11 ].
While there are no existing human studies on fluoride exposure and melatonin production or sleep behaviors, findings from a doctoral dissertation demonstrated that gerbils fed a high fluoride diet had lower nighttime melatonin production than those fed a low fluoride diet. Moreover, their melatonin production was lower than normal for their developmental stage [ 31 ].
Interestingly, there is emerging evidence that melatonin may be an effective treatment for adult and pediatric sleep disturbances, including central and obstructive sleep apnea, which suggests that low melatonin production may play an etiological role in these disorders [ 32 , 33 , 34 ]. Therefore, it is possible that excess fluoride exposure may contribute to increased pineal gland calcification and subsequent decreases in nighttime melatonin production that contribute to sleep disturbances.
Additional animal and prospective human studies are needed to explore this hypothesis. There are also other mechanisms by which fluoride exposure could potentially contribute to sleep disturbances. For example, higher water fluoride concentrations are associated with an increased likelihood of hypothyroidism among adults [ 35 , 36 ] and an increased incidence of diabetes among both adults [ 37 ] and children [ 38 ]. Both conditions are associated with an increased risk of obstructive sleep apnea in adulthood [ 39 , 40 , 41 ].
Likewise, in adults with Type 2 diabetes, lower melatonin production is positively associated with the presence and severity of sleep apnea symptoms [ 42 , 43 ]. Thus, fluoride exposure could potentially increase the risk of sleep disturbances via interference with other endocrine or neurodevelopmental processes that influence sleep. Conversely, sleep disturbances may also contribute to ADHD symptoms [ 48 , 49 ], as well as adversely affect endocrine health [ 50 ].
Intriguingly, we also found that each 0. Given that snoring is more prevalent among males [ 51 ], it is expected that reductions in snoring would also be more likely to occur among this population.
Snoring tends to be most predominant during slow wave sleep [ 52 ]; thus, we speculate that our findings may point to a role of fluoride exposure in disrupting this deep sleep stage, thereby reducing opportunities for snoring. Consistently, youth with idiopathic central sleep apnea have been shown to experience reductions in slow-wave sleep [ 53 ], and water fluoride was positively associated with reported sleep apnea symptoms in our study.
Alternatively, another possibility is that the gains in oral health from consumption of fluoridated water may protect against tonsillar infections that can contribute to snoring [ 54 ].
Future studies are needed to explore potential mechanisms by which fluoride exposure may reduce self-reported snoring. Interestingly, while water fluoride concentrations were significantly associated with several measured sleep outcomes, plasma fluoride concentrations were not associated with any. Household tap water fluoride concentrations may serve as a proxy for long-term exposure if place of residence does not change and therefore, our findings may point to a role of childhood or early adolescent fluoride exposure in altering sleep regulation.
However, since participants were enrolled during or after , the year that the Public Health Service recommended lowering water fluoride concentrations from 0. Future prospective studies are needed to examine critical windows of vulnerability for potential effects of fluoride exposure on sleep, as well as whether very low water fluoride concentrations, such as those observed in this study, are a potential risk factor for sleep disturbances.
Additionally, it is important to consider that our results and those of others on adverse effects of fluoride exposure must be balanced with the long-standing evidence of the benefit of fluoride on oral health. In this manner, our work also contributes to development and refinement of policies on delivery of fluoride to the public.
There are several limitations in this study. First, sleep outcomes were measured via self- report which may be subject to biases including recall inaccuracies [ 55 , 56 ]. Future studies employing actigraphy or polysomnography are needed to more objectively examine the association between fluoride exposure and sleep outcomes. Second, blood sample collection time was not standardized which can contribute to exposure misclassification and bias estimates toward the null.
Fourth, participants were older adolescents who may be prone to sleep disruptions for various reasons, including playing video games, studying, working at jobs or having social influences, for example. Future studies should expand the age range to examine associations between fluoride exposure and sleep in both younger and older individuals, as well as to examine effects of cumulative fluoride exposure. Lastly, in cross-sectional studies, it is difficult to determine directionality of associations found; however, we would not expect reverse causality of the relationships observed in this study whereby sleep behaviors influence water fluoride concentrations.
Still, the cross-sectional nature of this study does not allow for examination of critical windows of vulnerability for potential effects of fluoride exposure on sleep regulation which future prospective studies will be needed to address.
Chronic low-level fluoride exposure may contribute to changes in sleep cycle regulation and sleep behaviors among older adolescents in the US. Additional prospective studies are warranted to examine effects of fluoride on sleep patterns and determine critical windows of vulnerability for potential effects. Water Fluoridation Basics. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Community Water Fluoridation. Water Fluoridation Additives. Mechanistic aspects of the interactions between fluoride and dental enamel.
Crit Rev Oral Biol Med. Article Google Scholar. Aoba T, Fejerskov O. Dental fluorosis: chemistry and biology. Horowitz HS. Indexes for Measuring Dental Fluorosis. J Public Health Dent. Luke J. Fluoride deposition in the aged human pineal gland. Caries Res. Kalisinska E, et al. Fluoride concentrations in the pineal gland, brain and bone of goosander Mergus merganser and its prey in Odra River estuary in Poland. Environ Geochem Health.
Tharnpanich T, et al. Association between high pineal fluoride content and pineal calcificatin in a low fluoride area. Google Scholar. Tan DX, et al. National Research Council. Villa A, et al. Relationships between fluoride intake, urinary fluoride excretion and fluoride retention in children and adults: an analysis of available data. Differences in exposure and biological markers of fluoride among white and African American children.
Jain RB. Environ Toxicol Pharmacol. Gender differences in polysomnographic sleep in young healthy sleepers. Chronobiol Int. The effects of aging on sleep architecture in healthy subjects. Adv Exp Med Biol. Grandner MA, et al. Sleep Med. Sleep quality and body mass index: a co-twin study.
J Sleep Res. National Center for Health Statistics. Malin AJ, et al. Environ Int. Hirshkowitz M, et al. National Sleep Foundation sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary.
Public health service recommendation for fluoride concentration in drinking water for the prevention of dental caries. Public Health Rep. Kunz D, et al. A new concept for melatonin deficit: on pineal calcification and melatonin excretion. Mahlberg R, et al. The purpose was to discover whether fluoride F accumulates in the pineal gland and thereby affects pineal physiology during early development.
Secondly, a controlled longitudinal experimental study was carried out to discover whether F affects the biosynthesis of melatonin, MT , during pubertal development using the excretion rate of urinary 6-sulphatoxymelatonin, aMT6s , as the index of pineal MT synthesis.
The HF pups received 2. Urinary aMT6s levels were measured by radioimmunoassay. In conclusion, F inhibits pineal MT synthesis in gerbils up until the time of sexual maturation. Finally, F was associated with a significant acceleration of pubertal development in female gerbils using body weights, age of vaginal opening and accelerated development of the ventral gland. The results suggest that F is associated with low circulating levels of MT and this leads to an accelerated sexual maturation in female gerbils.
The results strengthen the hypothesis that the pineal has a role in pubertal development. It has the highest calcium concentration of any normal soft tissue in the body because it calcifies physiologically in the form of hydroxyapatite HA. It has a high metabolic activity coupled with a very profuse blood supply: two factors favouring the deposition of F in mineralizing tissues.
The fact that the pineal is outside the blood-brain barrier suggests that pineal HA could sequester F from the bloodstream if it has the same strong affinity for F as HA in the other mineralizing tissues. It is a normal physiological process.
A complex series of enzymatic reactions within the pinealocytes converts the essential amino acid, tryptophan, to a whole family of indoles.
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