# Aluminum { causes } dementia ??? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [June 30, 2003, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358 "2003-06-30T15:14:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![grg88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bbe5ce/32.png) [@grg88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grg88)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2003, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358/1 "2003-06-30T15:14:48Z")
In [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1\_216a.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_216a.html) Our Cecil revisits the supposed linkage between Aluminum and Alzheimer’s. I’m disappointed that the phrase “co-incidence does not imply causation” or similar doesnt appear in the article. For all we know, Alzheimer’s causes brain cells to retain more aluminum, not the converse. Many chronic conditions trigger some kind of chemical unbalance in the bloodstream or inside the cells. That in no way implies the chemicals had a hand in causing the condition-- the imbalance is a result of the diesease, not a cause or even a contributing factor. It would be like saying that nose-blowing causes colds, sweating causes fevers, or the very commonly beleived: sugar causes diabetes. As in the case of power-lines being associated with cancer, the connection may be tenuous and indirect. It’s conceivable that people that live near large power lines tend to live in more industrialized parts of town, where there may be older housing, more airborne pollution, and other factors that just happen to coincidentally cluster near power lines. A little more logical thinking is all I ask! ---
**Author:** ![Flyfisher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e480ec/32.png) [@Flyfisher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyfisher)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2003, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358/2 "2003-06-30T16:34:26Z")
There were some studies done some years back with regard to the electromagnetic radiation from power lines being a cause of cancer. As I recall the study showed that incidences of various types of cancer in areas in close proximity to power lines was as ramdom as anywhere else not in close proximity of power lines. I’ve never personally bought into the claims about power lines being a cause. After all, the strength of the radiation is inversely proportional to square of the distance. I think a lot of the things folks want to claim as being a culprit is due to their ignorance and inability to accept reality. Sure there are some REAL health hazards out there related to electromagnetic radiation like frequencies and energy levels high enough to make water molecules dance, but none of that is found in power lines. I suppose humanity could revert to being hunter-gathers again so as to avoid all of the nasty, evil things civilization has purposely and inadvertantly drummed up to thin out the gene pool. But then on the other hand, I’m sure the hunter-gathers found it troublesome when a bear (or some other toothy varmit) wasn’t intimidated by the pointy stick they were attempting to be treating with. If its not one thing, its another, eh? ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2003, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358/3 "2003-06-30T17:39:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Flyfisher \* > I’ve never personally bought into the claims about power lines being a cause. After all, the strength of the radiation is inversely proportional to square of the distance. For a point charge, no doubt. But for a linear distribution like a power line, wouldn’t it be inversely proportional to the distance itself? ---
**Author:** ![juji\_mojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@juji\_mojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/juji_mojo)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2003, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358/4 "2003-06-30T19:28:04Z")
Have there been any studies of proportion of people with Alzhiemers type dementia (or diagnosed Alzhiermers’s disease after death) in towns with Aluminum Smelters? For example, northern Quebec, in the Bagotville/Alma Chicoutimi region? Or near bauxite mines? I have tried to search but havent come up with much. On the other hand, the dementia ward where I work has a high proportion of ex nurses as patients. (4/50 in my unit, and in another dementia unit in the same building the ratio is 6/48.) Considering most of the women in the facility had “wife and mother”.as a career…does this say something about nursing, professionals, or would people even say this is statistically significant? We also have two former bookkeepers, and incidentally my grandmother, who has Alzheimers type- dementia is also a former bookkeeper. But again, its not hard data, and when we talk about it at work some people theorize that former nurses are just so healthy that all the old age diseases get them, since they’ve avoided heart disease, etc at younger ages. I tried to compare with men, but since men are less than 10% of the population of our facility, I really cant give any trends. We currently have an ex police officer, an ex teacher, engineer, manager of a department store and a used car salesman in my unit. Is anyone good with stats and can provide insight? Or should I be booking my room in a dementia unit right now? ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2003, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358/5 "2003-07-01T19:16:17Z")
I happen to work specifically on Alzheimer’s Disease (Institute of Psychiatric Research, IU School of Medicine). Aluminum has pretty much been eliminated from the running as even a partial cause. This is what happens when one re-prints a 20-year-old(!!!) popularization on a topic. What has been discovered of interest is that dietary cholesterol likely contributes to Alzheimer’s Disease, or at least to the buildup of amyloid plaque in the brain: > **[The role of cholesterol in the biosynthesis of beta-amyloid - PubMed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10501560/?dopt=Abstract)** > > Addition of the beta-hydroxy-beta-methylglutaryl-CoA (HmG-CoA) reductase inhibitor lovastatin to human HEK cells transfected with the amyloid precursor protein (APP) reduces intracellular cholesterol/protein ratios by 50%, and markedly inhibits... > **[Cholesterol depletion inhibits the generation of beta-amyloid in hippocampal...](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9600988/?dopt=Abstract)** > > The amyloid precursor protein (APP) plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. During intracellular transport APP undergoes a series of proteolytic cleavages that lead to the release either of an amyloidogenic fragment called... And there may be some evidence that copper plays a role in this: > **[Metalloenzyme-like activity of Alzheimer's disease beta-amyloid. Cu-dependent...](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12192006/?dopt=Abstract)** > > Beta-amyloid (Abeta) 1-42, implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease, forms an oligomeric complex that binds copper at a CuZn superoxide dismutase-like binding site. Abeta.Cu complexes generate neurotoxic H(2)O(2) from O(2) through Cu(2+)... But aluminum is not a suspect and has not been for a while. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358/6 "2003-07-04T05:11:33Z")
**Achernar** , I don’t understand what difference that would make. Field strength is inversely proportional to the square of distance, regardless of shape of the source. This applies to electromagnetic (electroweak), strong nuclear, and gravitational forces. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358/7 "2003-07-04T12:38:07Z")
[Cf. Eq. 2](http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/LineCharge.html). ---
**Author:** ![emjay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e57/32.png) [@emjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emjay)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358/8 "2003-07-04T18:51:08Z")
All the way back to **grg88** : You liken “aluminum causes dementia” to the mistaken notion that “sugar causes diabetes”. But the analogy seems flawed, because aluminum is a foreign substance that is **accumulated** in the body, as opposed to a necessary substance that the body manufactures and **balances**. “Co-incidence does not imply causation” - I agree. But aluminum is present only because of exposure, yes? ---
**Author:** ![bronto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@bronto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bronto)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358/9 "2003-07-04T22:49:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Irishman \* > **Field strength is inversely proportional to the square of distance, regardless of shape of the source.** More precisely, the field of a point charge (or point mass) is that way. But to find the field of an extensive object, you need to integrate over its whole volume (or length, in the case of a wire whose thickness can be ignored). I show a crude example of such integration [here](http://www.ogre.nu/doodle.html#gravring). The field at distance _r_ from a straight wire is proportional to the integral of _1/(t^2+r^2)_, which is _(atan(t1/r)-atan(t0/r))/r_, i.e. the angle subtended by the wire divided by _r_, not _r^2_. If we’re talking about the magnetic field of a current, that’s more complicated because the angle of a given part of the wire makes a difference and I don’t know how to work it; it may even be _k/r^2_ but somehow I doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2003, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358/10 "2003-07-05T00:17:19Z")
It’s easy to show using Ampère’s Law that the magnetic field for an infinite current-carrying wire is proportional to 1/r. I think for the distances we’re talking about, we can treat the wires as infinite. If not, it’s just a little more difficult to use Biot-Savart to get the B-field for a finite wire. It’s: B = mu[sub]0[/sub]I / (4pi r) (sin(theta[sub]2[/sub]) - sin(theta[sub]1[/sub])) (Griffiths, eq. 5.35) While there is an r-dependence in theta, for big thetas, it’s more like r[sup]-1[/sup] than r[sup]-2[/sup]. Just like in the E-field case. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2003, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358/11 "2003-07-05T03:26:07Z")
I stand corrected. ---
**Author:** ![Mirage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Mirage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirage)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358/12 "2003-07-10T13:57:59Z")
> [@](#): > > As in the case of power-lines being associated with cancer, the connection may be tenuous and indirect. It’s conceivable that people that live near large power lines tend to live in more industrialized parts of town, where there may be older housing, more airborne pollution, and other factors that just happen to coincidentally cluster near power lines. That seems to be the right idea. I remember reading somewhere (it might be Cecil but I couldn’t find it in the archives) that the higher incidences of cancer near transformer stations were finally traced to toxins leaking out of the transformes themselves and getting into the ground water. So yes, there was a higher incidence but it didn’t have to do with what the transformers did but with what they were made out of. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358/13 "2003-07-10T17:04:02Z")
An effect related to the field strength question is that the noise from a freeway, which is a line source, diminishes inversely with the distance, not the square of the distance. So the noise can be heard from farther away than you would otherwise expect. About power lines, the more recent belief among some researchers is that coronal discharge causes ions in the air near power lines, and the bad air could be responsible. This barely makes a tick on the plausibility meter, but it’s greater than the field explanation. They still have the problem of not having credible data that shows any higher incidence of disease. ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2003, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aluminum-causes-dementia/185358/14 "2003-07-16T17:50:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by emjay \* > \*\*All the way back to **grg88** : > You liken “aluminum causes dementia” to the mistaken notion that “sugar causes diabetes”. But the analogy seems flawed, because aluminum is a foreign substance that is **accumulated** in the body, as opposed to a necessary substance that the body manufactures and **balances**. > > “Co-incidence does not imply causation” - I agree. But aluminum is present only because of exposure, yes? \*\* And? Whenever one leaves behind the mere correlative studies and starts to work on the real nuts-n-bolts of the matter, it has been found that one CANNOT induce nor increase amyloid plaque deposition (what aluminum was accused of doing) by feeding, injecting, or otherwise applying aluminum to test animals. These test animals CAN have their amyloid plaque deposition increased by other means (like high cholesterol feeding). Likewise, while other substances can increase Amyloid Precursor Protein production in cell culture, aluminum doesn’t. Thus, even though aluminum is a “foreign” substance (actually, it’s no more “foreign” to animals than is sugar–we don’t make our own sugar and it can and does naturally occur in the most pristine of water sources), and even though it is associated with amyloid plaque, the real science seems to say that it doesn’t cause the plaque. It seems to just be a “come-along”. Cholesterol (LDL–yup the “bad” cholesterol) is implicated in both correlation and nuts-n-bolts studies. Inactivity is implicated similarly. Lack of mental stimulation is implicated in increasing onset frequency and speed of disease progression. Thus, the take-home message is REALLY BAD AND EEEEEEEEEVIL and MUST be ignored by the popular press because it is so BAD AND EEEEEEEEEVIL. The take-home message is eat a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet, exercise regularly, and never stop educating yourself.