Influence of high-fluorine environmental background on crops and human health in hot spring-type fluorosis-diseased areas

Drinking water-type fluorosis is the most harmful endemic disease in China with the largest number of sufferers. Although the implementation of the policy to alter water sources to lower fluoride level has effectively controlled the spread of this kind of endemic disease, its prevalence could not thoroughly be stopped because the high-fluoride environmental background in these endemically diseased areas could still do harm to human health through food chain. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a more deep-going study on the drinking water-type fluorosis. To investigate the effect of high fluorine environmental background on crops and human health in the hot spring-type fluorosis-diseased areas, local water, paddy soil, rice, whole vegetables and soils around their roots were sampled for analysis. The results were compared with those of the control groups in fluorosis-free areas which are similar to the fluorosis-diseased areas both in natural background and in social background. It is indicated that rice and vegetables can accumulate water-soluble fluorine either in soils or in irrigating water, and different crops have different abilities of fixing fluorine. The contents of fluorine in different parts of vegetables in the fluorosis-diseased and fluorosis-free areas were statistically categorized. The results showed that the fluorine contents of roots, tubers, leaves and flowers of vegetables in the fluorosis-diseased areas are 3.56, 1.17, 3.07 and 3.23 mg/kg, respectively. However, comparisons showed that in the fluorosis-free areas, the fluorine contents are 2.17, 0.70, 1.91 and 2.52 mg/kg, respectively. Moreover, different parts of a crop also show significantly different fluorine fixation abilities. It is demonstrated that the fluorine contents of the strongly metabolic parts are relatively high. For example, the fluorine contents of roots, leaves and flowers of vegetables are much higher than those of stems. The fluorine fixation ability of seeds is very weak. In order to reduce the risk of human body's exposure to fluoride, the impact of hot spring water on the capability of crops to fix fluorine should be reduced as much as possible. It is of great importance to prevent crops from being irrigated with hot spring water and it is advisable to grow crops with relatively low capabilities to enrich fluorine, such as those with seeds or tubers as the main edible parts in the areas which are severely affected by hot spring water.