From: dam@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (David Morning)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Alzheimer's and Aluminum pots and pans
Date: 16 Dec 92 10:42:24 GMT
Organization: Glasgow University Computing Science Dept.

peterm@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Peter Mardahl) writes:


>dam@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk writes:  
>>Tea. Little old ladies in the UK drink lots of it. Lots of little old ladies
>>get Alzheimer's. Tea has a high concentration of naturally occuring aluminium.
>>Water in the UK is regularly dosed with high levels of alum.
>>
>>Tea + UK water = Bauxite soup
>>
>>Dave
>>

>  This is supposed to be an argument?   Well, here's another one:
>"Lots of people in the US drink beer.  Beer has a high concentration
>of alcohol.  Beer drinkers have more heart attacks, on average.
>Therefore alcohol causes heart attacks."  It's not really quite
>as simple as that is it?

>  Your argument isn't exactly analogous, but it als doesn't address any of
>these issues:

Alcohol doesn't reside permanently in your body, it gets flushed out
eventually. Beer drinkers get heart attacks because they are fat and
unhealthy.
Deposits of alumininium in your body will remain permanently.

>  Old men in England drink tea also.  Do they show a higher rate
>of Alzheimers?

No, because they drink stout rather than tea...and it's Britain, not England.
Women drink far more tea than men.

>  Could genetic factors in the English population predispose them
>to getting Alzheimers?

That link would nave been established long ago. It doesn't appear to run
in families.

>  If the water has elevated concentrations of aluminum, how come
>little old men don't get alzheimers at a higher rate also?

Because they don't drink as much tea.

>  Is aluminum really the cause of alzheimers?  Perhaps there's
>another factor which causes it?  Like air pollution?

Its possible but air pollution is very low in Scotland yet there is a
high incidence of Alzheimer's on the West coast.

>  Do the little old ladies you speak of actually have a higher
>rate of Alzheimers than average?  Such is your implication, but
>you don't say so.

Depends on which area of Britain they live in. There are clusters, much
like leukemia clusters

>  The only reason aluminum was linked to alzheimers in the first
>place was because aluminum was "found" in the plaques.  Do you
>have any solid evidence other than this, which shows that aluminum
>causes alzheimers?  Would you care to cite these studies?

No, this one referred to only the ,Oxford I believe, experiment which
was contaminated by outside sources. I belive there have been other studies
which have confirmed the presence of aluminium, but, as you pointed out,
they may have been contaminated too. I believe the offending party was the
stain used to stain the samples for microscopic analysis. Apparently, in the
Oxford case, this stain had aluminium as one of its components. Whether the
other studies used the same type of stain, I don't know. Might be worth
checking.

>For the record, the article I cited from the Chronicle only implies
>that aluminum doesn't cause alzheimers, it doesn't state it.
>Aluminum now seems a less likely cause, but it has not been ruled out.

One interesting aspect of Azheimer's is that it causes voids in the brain
tissue much the same as scrapie infected sheep or BSE infected cattle.
For a while their was speculation that eating BSE infected meat may be
a source.
This vicious rumour was quashed.......by the same people who said scrapie
couldn't jump species. Scary huh?

Dave

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