Would decreased aluminum ingestion reduce the incidence of Alzheimers disease?
D. R. McLachlan, T. P. Kruck, W. J. Lukiw and S. S. Krishnan Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, Ont. Although the cause of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remains unknown there is mounting evidence that implicates aluminum as a toxic environmental factor of considerable importance. Four independent lines of evidence–laboratory studies of the effects of intracerebral aluminum on the cognitive and memory performance of animals, biochemical studies, epidemiologic studies and the slowing of the progress of the disease with the use of an agent that removes aluminum from the body–now support the concept that aluminum is one of the pathogenic factors in AD. The evidence warrants serious consideration of reducing human exposure to aluminum. We hypothesize that a public health effort to restrict human ingestion of aluminum would reduce the incidence of this common chronic illness in the elderly.
