(continued from previous post)
On the other hand, I’ve been able to find a few studies (via pubmed) that suggest that flouride supplements can help slow down hearing loss.
note: 25 mg of sodium flouride = 11.3 mg of flouride (actually, florine)
- [Otospongiosis and sodium fluoride. A clinical double-blind, placebo-controlled study on sodium fluoride treatment in otospongiosis.](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2655462) Am J Otol. 1989 Jan;10(1):20-2.Links
- [Fluoride Therapy for Cochlear Otosclerosis? An Audiometric and Computerized Tomography Evaluation.](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&cluster=2615447961535151138) Acta Otolaryngol 2001; 121: 174 – 177
- [Sodium fluoride: effectiveness of treatment for cochlear otosclerosis.](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&cluster=9915185532078141485) Am J Otol. 1986 Mar;7(2):121-5.
- [Sodium fluoride therapy](") The American Journal of Otology. Issue: Volume 14(5), September 1993, p 482–490
(positive results on ~ 20 mg flouride/day)
“The effect of sodium fluoride treatment in patients with otospongiosis has been evaluated in a prospective clinical double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 95 patients. The results showed a statistically significant greater deterioration of hearing loss in the placebo group than in the group actively treated with 40 mg of sodium fluoride daily. These results support the view that sodium fluoride can change otospongiotic, active lesions to more dense, inactive otosclerotic lesions.”
(positive results on ~ 11mg flouride/day; 1-2 years suffice; sample size ~ 20)
“The progress of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) in patients with cochlear otosclerosis was compared for 19 patients treated with fluoride for 1-5 years and 22 untreated controls. CT scans of eight patients before and after fluoride treatment were evaluated visually. Fluoride therapy arrested the progression of SNHL in the low (250, 500 and 1,000 Hz) (p<0.001) and high (2 and 4 kHz) (p=0.008) frequencies. It seemed to be more effective for the higher frequencies in cases with an initial SNHL of <50 dB. Fluoride administration for 4 years did not seem to be superior to a shorter treatment period (1-2 years). For six patients followed up after discontinuing fluoride therapy there was minimal deterioration in SNHL. There was no clear relationship between the size and site of otospongiotic lesions on CT and the severity of SNHL. Follow-up with CT evaluation did not provide reliable information as to the efficacy of fluoride therapy.”
(positive results on ???/day; lifetime maintenance dose; sample size ~ 100)
“We examined the effectiveness of sodium fluoride in treatment of cochlear otospongiosis in ninety-four patients with cochlear otosclerosis and ninety-eight patients with stapedial otosclerosis and sensorineural hearing loss. The drug halted or slowed the progression of sensorineural hearing impairment in 63% of the patients with cochlear otosclerosis and 46% of the patients with stapedial otosclerosis. The single factor that best predicted which patients would respond most favorably to treatment was rate of progression before treatment. Sodium fluoride therapy was successful for 79% of the patients losing their hearing at a rate of 5 dB or more per year at one or more of the speech frequencies. The finding that patients with more rapid rates of progression responded most favorably to sodium fluoride therapy suggests that patients with the most active otospongiotic processes will be the most responsive to treatment.”
A 1993 summary, encouraging use of sodium flouride.