By David Liu, PHD

Saturday April 6, 2013 (foodconsumer.org) -- No one knows what exactly causes Alzheimer's disease, which affects nearly five million Americans.  But a growing body of evidence suggests that toxic metals particularly aluminum salts, which are unfortunately often used in processed foods and drinking water, can be a major risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, which eventually completely disables patients and eventually leads to death.

A review published in the April 2013 issue of Cell Biology and Toxicology explains that aluminum can induce intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) leading to neurological disorders like Alzheimer's disease.  Aluminum is involved also in other diseases such as anemia, osteomalacia, hepatic disorder in addition to Alzheimer's disease, according to the review.

Samantha Davenward from Keele University, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, UK and colleagues, authors of the review, say "This Al-evoked phenomenon is coupled to diminished mitochondrial activity, anerobiosis, and the channeling of α-ketoacids towards anti-oxidant defense. The resulting metabolic reconfiguration leads to fat accumulation and a reduction in ATP synthesis, characteristics that are common to numerous medical disorders."

J. R. Walton from University of New South Wales in Sydney NSW, Australia has also published a review recently in Journal of Alzheimer's Disease suggesting that although many toxic or infective agents may cause the development and progression of Alzheimer's disease, chronic aluminum neurotoxicity in many cases is at least mainly if not 100% responsible for Alzheimer's disease.

Walton says many people routinely ingest aluminum salts used in processed foods and alum-treated drinking water and those who carry a susceptibility gene may have an increased absorption of aluminum leading to the development of Alzheimer's  disease.  High levels of aluminum have been found in the blood and the brain of patients with Alzheimer's disease or Down syndrome. 

There are no cure for Alzheimer's disease, all conventional doctors would say.  So is it really that Alzheimer's disease patients can't do anything to help themselves?

Samantha Davenward from Keele University in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, UK and colleagues  have recently published a study also in Journal of Alzheimer's Disease suggesting that drinking silicon-rich mineral water may help reduce the body burden of aluminum in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Davenward and colleagues compared two groups of patients with Alzheimer's disease, with the study group assigned to drink up to one liter of a silicon-rich mineral water each day for 12 weeks and the control group not drinking such water and found study patients reduced aluminum levels in their systems and three out of 15 study patients were found to improve their cognitive performance significantly while the water did not affect the urinary excretion of essential minerals like iron and copper, which are beneficial.

Silicon found in the mineral water is a natural element.  It should be noted that silica or silicon dioxide used in processed food and dietary supplements are artificial.  Therefore, readers should not consider the man-made silica as beneficial as the naturally occurring silicon.  In fact, recent research has discovered that artificial nanoparticles like silicon dioxide and titanium dioxide which are commonly used in processed food and cosmetic products, can disrupt DNA and cause mutation and potentially cancer.  Studies show that nanoparticles kill 100% of insects and cause all sorts of abnormality in laboratory animals.

Drinking silicon rich mineral water may not necessarily be the best thing Alzheimer's disease patients can do to help themselves.  Previous studies have suggested patients can do many other things to help Alzheimer's disease.   What are beneficial include eating betaine, ketogenic diet, shilajit, dietary supplements, functional foods including anthocyanin-enriched billberry and blackcurrant extracts, organoselenium dietary supplementation, and green tea extract, all of which are antioxidants that can help neutralize the reactive oxygen species induced by toxic metals like aluminum.  What may also be beneficial include turmeric, Mediterranean diet, red grape juice, grape seed exact, ginkgo biloba extract, cinnamon extract, vitamin C, vitamin D sufficiency, apple juice, calorie restriction, omega-3 fatty acids, garlic, and dietary polyphenols.

How to prevent Alzheimer's disease?

Although eating certain foods or taking dietary supplements may help improve the condition of Alzheimer's disease, the best a person can do is do something that helps prevent the disease in the first place.   To prevent the disease, the ingestion of aluminum salts used in processed foods should be controlled.

Aluminum salts are commonly used in processed foods even certain salt products may contain aluminum salts.  For instance, fine salts used on potato chips may use some aluminum salt as dispersing agents and aluminum salt is not labeled in this case.

A report published on foodconsumer.org earlier lists some foods that contain high levels of aluminum salts.  Read here for more information.

Those who want to know what aluminum salts food industry uses read here.

Drinking water may contain excess aluminum because water is often treated with aluminum salts.   Some water filters  may be used to remove this toxic metal, which has no benefit for human physiology. If aluminum is not an issue with your drinking water and you want to use a water filter to remove organic pollutants, then you may want to consider using a filter like non-salt alternative filters, which can maximally retain the minerals in drinking water.  Just like silicon, minerals including iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphate or even fluoride can lower the uptake of aluminum, which can come from other sources, in the gastrointestinal tract, according to a 2004 report. To be removed on Sep 5, 2015