Oxidative stress in children with endemic skeletal fluorosis

SUMMARY: In the village of Kheru Nayak Thanda in the Gulbarga district of Karnataka, India, 18 children aged 3 to 10 years with endemic skeletal fluoro- sis were shown to have oxidative stress as evidenced by elevated levels of malondialdehyde in their red blood cells, indicating increased lipid peroxida- tion. Significant alterations of antioxidant systems in the blood were con- firmed by decreased levels of glutathione and uric acid together with an in- crease in the activity of glutathione peroxidase as well as the level of ascorbic acid along with a slight decrease in the activity of superoxide dismutase.