Aluminum in blood

Allain P, Mauras Y. 1979. Determination of aluminum in blood, urine, and water by inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometry. Anal Chem 51 2089-2091. 

Gardiner PE, Ottaway JM, Fell GS, et al. 1981. Determination of aluminum in blood plasma or serum by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry. Anal Chim Acta 128 57-66. 

Freeh. W.. Cedergren, A., Cederberg, C. and Vessman, J. (1982). Evaluation of some critical factors affecting determination of aluminum in blood, plasma or serum by electrothermal atomic absorption spectroscopy. Clin. Chem., 28, 2259. 

The danger of contamination effects in determinations of aluminum in blood deserves special mention. Some manufacturers of blood sampling apparatus today supply special sample vials for the determination of metals in blood. Tests show that these lead to very little contamination of the sample by the vials. (These too can be obtained from the laboratories on special request.)... 

Patients with end-stage renal disease hyperphosphatemia ineffectively filter excess phosphate that enters the body in the normal diet.278 Elevated phosphate produces the bone disorder renal osteodystrophy. Skeletal deformity may occur, possibly associated with cardiovascular disease. Calcium deposits may further build up around the body and in blood vessels creating further health risks. The use of lanthanum carbonate is being promoted as an alternative to aluminum-based therapies.279,280 Systemic absorption, and cost have produced a clinical candidate, Fosrenol (AnorMED), an intriguing use of a lanthanide compound in therapy. 

All people have small amounts of aluminum in their bodies. It can be measured in the blood, feces, or urine. Only the urine measurements can tell you whether you have been exposed to larger-than-normal amounts of aluminum. Your doctor would have to send a sample to a specialized laboratory to do this test. To learn more, see Chapters 2 and 6. 

There are limited data on the distribution of aluminum in humans. Clearance of26Al from the blood was assessed in 2 male volunteers orally exposed to 100 mg aluminum as aluminum chloride (Hohl et al. 

Subcutaneous injection of rabbits with aluminum chloride daily for 28 days was associated with significant accumulation of aluminum in bone, followed in order by significantly increased aluminum concentrations in renal cortex, renal medulla, liver, testes, skeletal muscle, heart, brain white matter, hippocampus, and plasma (Du Val et al. 1986). Because the brain tissue of treated rabbits had the lowest aluminum concentrations of the tissues evaluated, the authors suggested that there was a partial blood-brain barrier to entry of aluminum. 

Melethil SK Mechanism of blood-brain transport of aluminum in rats University of Missouri Kansas National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences... 

Normal values of aluminum in whole blood have been reported to range from 0.14 to 6.24 mg/L (ppm), and in plasma from 0.13 to 0.16 mg/L (ppm) (Sorenson et al. 1974). Normal values in serum have been reported at 1.46 and 0.24 mg/L (ppm), using neutron activation and atomic absorption analysis, respectively (Berlyne et al. 1970). A normal value of 0.037 mg/L (ppm) for serum using flameless atomic absorption analysis has also been reported (Fuchs et al. 1974). Drablos et al. (1992) analyzed aluminum serum levels in 230 nonexposed workers (controls) and reported a mean aluminum serum level of 0.005 0.002 mg/L (ppm). Research has shown that the levels of aluminum in the serum in the general population do not exceed 0.01 mg/L (ppm) (Cornells 1982). Nieboer et al. (1995) reviewed 34 studies on aluminum levels in serum or plasma, and also reported that aluminum serum levels in the general population were typically <0.01 mg/L (ppm). 

Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is a powerful technique that uses an inductively coupled plasma as an ion source and a mass spectrometer as an ion analyzer. It can measure the presence of more than 75 elements in a single scan, and can achieve detection limits down to parts per trillion (ppt) levels for many elements—levels that are two or three orders of magnitude lower than those obtained by ICP-AES (Keeler 1991). It is more expensive than ICP-AES and requires more highly skilled technical operation. Aluminum levels in urine and saliva were detected down to 0.02 g/mL and in blood serum to 0.001 g/mL using ICP-MS (Ward 1989). Speciation studies have employed ICP-MS as a detector for aluminum in tissue fractions separated by size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) with detection limits of 0.04 g/g in femur, kidney and brain (Owen et al. 1994). 

Methods for Determining Biomarkers of Exposure and Effect. GFAAS is the method of choice for measuring low-ppb levels of aluminum in whole blood, serum, plasma, urine, and various biological tissues (Alder et al. 1977 Alderman and Gitelman 1980 Bettinelli et al. 1985 Bouman et al. 

Fatemi SJA, Kadir FHA, Moore GR. 1991. Aluminum transport in blood serum - binding of aluminum by human transferrin in the presence of human albumin and citrate. Biochem J 280 527-532. 

Gardiner PE, Stoeppler M. 1987. Optimisation of the analytical conditions for the determination of aluminum in human blood plasma and serum by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. Part 2. Assessment of the analytical method. J Anal Atom Spectrom 2 401-404. 

Sayer MDJ, Reader JP, Dalziel TRK, et al. 1991. Mineral content and blood parameters of dying brown trout (salmo trutta 1.) exposed to acid and aluminum in soft water. Comp Biochem Physiol 99C 345-348. 

Umeda M, Tsurusaki K, Kamikawa S, et al. 1990. Red blood cell aluminum in patients with renal failure and effect of desferrioxamine infusion. Blood Purif 8 295-300. 

Xu Z-C, Tang J-ping, Xu Z-X, et al. 1992b. Kinetics of aluminum in rats IV Blood and cerebrospinal fluid kinetics. Toxicol Lett 63 7-12. 

Horovitz B, Williams B, Rywkin S, et al. Inactivation of viruses in blood with aluminum phthalocyanine derivatives. Transfusion 1991 31 102-8. 

Table 11. Aluminum present in different materials used in blood collection and leached after 7 days contact with water ...

Calcium channels are suggested to mediate intestinal aluminum absorption [84]. Aluminum distributes unequally to all tissues. The values given for the aluminum levels in the human body vary widely. Under normal conditions the aluminum concentration in blood is 5-10 pmol L-1 [14, 85]. The mean aluminum concentration in human milk was 23.4 9.6 pg L-1 and did not differ significantly between colostrum, intermediate-stage, and mature-stage milk [86]. 

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