| rat female NaF |
Subchronic (30-90 days) |
Sodium fluoride (LR, Qualigens Fine Chemicals, Mumbai, India) was dissolved in saline so as to administer by oral intubation at 20 or 40 mg/kg daily for 60 days in a volume of 0.2 ml/100 g body weight. Control animals received an equivalent volume of the vehicle. Previous investigators who reported the deleterious effect of fluoride on tissue protein concentrations, administered sodium fluoride at 10–50 mg/kg orally for 3 months to rats (Chinoy et al., 1993) and to rabbits (Shashi et al., 1992). Hence, intermediate doses, 20 and 40 mg/kg were chosen for the present study.; Colony-bred adult Wistar rats of either sex weighing 130–150 g were used to test oral LD50 of sodium fluoride. Male rats (LD50 80 mg/kg) were found to be highly susceptible than females (LD50 100 mg/kg). Further male animals were dying during the treatment and none survived, whereas no mortality occurred in the female group. Therefore, all experiments were carried out on female animals. Ten animals were chosen randomly for each test and control group. Animals were housed in groups (3 or 4 in each cage) at room temperature (22-30 deg C) to which they were acclimatized and were supplied with a balanced commercial rat feed (Gold mohur, Mumbai, India) and tap water ad libitum. |