Napier’s Dental Health: Molybdenum ‘Big Factor’

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29270, 30 July 1960, Page 12

Napier’s Dental Health: Molybdenum ‘Big Factor’

(New Zealand Press Association)

DUNEDIN, July 29. A higher intake of molybdenum may be the prime factor responsible for the lower prevalence of dental caries among Napier children when a comparison was made with Hastings children before the introduction of water fluoridation at Hastings. Dr. T. G. Ludwig, of the Medical. Research Council, Mr W. B. Healy, of the Soil Bureau, D.5.1.R., and Captain F. L. Losee, of the United States Naval Medical Research Institute, who is seconded to the Medical Research Council at the Otago University dental school, explain this possibility in the May issue of “Nature,” a British scientific journal.

Additional studies involving the children, the extension of the investigation to animal experimentation, and an analysis of vegetables from the home garden would be necessary before their theory could be established, they said., ’ The three scientists are engaged on an investigation of present conditions to discover the casual mechanisms responsible for the relationship between the prevalence of caries and certain soil conditions in New Zealand. One phase was the study of recent saline soils thrown up by the earthquake at Napier in 1931. In 1954-55, dental examinations of the children of Napier and Hastings were undertaking to establish a baseline for charting the effect of the fluoridation of the Hastings water supply in reducing the prevalence of caries. It was found that Napier children, aged 5 to 8, had considerably fewer caries than children of the same ages in Hastings. This was unexpected in view of the apparent similarity of conditions in the two cities—size and composition of population, rainfall and hours of sunshine, socioeconomic conditions, normal mineral composition of the two water supplies and a common milk sup-

ply. It was unlikely that the difference in early results could be related to the ingestion of fluoride from fish or some unsuspected source, said the article. Soil and vegetable samples were collected from five market gardens in the Napier area and from four in Hastings. Spectographic analysis showed them to have similar composition of elements, but the presence of trace elements other than fluorine was suggested. Molybdenum 'was detected in the ash of only one Hastings vegetable, but it was present in most Napier vegetables. The scientists said the high molybdenum content can be explained as a result of the salinity of the soil after the Napier earthquake. “At present it seems possible that a higher intake of molybdenum may be the prime factor responsible for the lower prevalence of dental caries among Napier children,” the article said, and it refers to other studies which have pointed to molybdenum content being associated with lower caries prevalence.