Fluoride, Calcium, Phosphate, Ash, and Water Content of Human Dental Pulps

¹ Forsyth Dental Center and Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts
² University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, New York

The amounts of fluoride, calcium, ash, and water were determined for pooled pulps of teeth of persons under twenty, twenty to twenty-nine, thirty to forty-nine, and over fifty years of age from communities with 0.06, 1.0, 2.9, 3.0, and 5.2 ppm of fluoride in the water supply. Concentrations of ash, calcium, phosphorus, and fluoride in the pulp were each many times greater than has been reported for other soft tissues of man. Almost without exception there was an increase in the concentration of fluoride with advancing age. This finding, coupled with the increase in ash content with increasing age, suggests that the uptake of fluoride in the dental pulp is governed in part by the amount of diffuse mineralization present in this tissue.