Alzheimer aluminum

Alzheimer s disease, 6, 770 Thorcx process, 6, 957 Aluminum, alkyl-... 

The Complexity of Aluminum-DNA Interactions Relevance to Alzheimer s and Other Neurological Diseases... 

Because of numerous similarities in their properties and reactions, aluminum and beryllium will be described together even though they are in different groups of the periodic table. Although it is not completely understood, there is some indication that the accumulation of aluminum in the brain may have some relationship to Alzheimer s disease, and beryllium compounds are extremely toxic. 

The effect of alum as adjuvant was also tested in the liposphere-vaccine formulation. In the presence of lipid A, enhanced immune response is obtained even in the absence of alum. This observation is very important because there is increasing concern about the toxic side effects of alum in the long term. Research has suggested a link between aluminum and diseases of the brain, including Alzheimer s disease. 

Aluminum (hard, Al3+) Implicated in Alzheimers disease May interact with phosphates, may cross-link proteins. 

Arispe, N., Rojas, E., and Pollard, H. B. (1993). Alzheimer disease amyloid beta protein forms calcium channels in bilayer membranes Blockade by tromethamine and aluminum. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90, 567-571. 

Chelation. Chelation (pronounced KEY-lay-shnn) medications act by removing trace metals from the body. They are used most often in cases of accidental or intentional overdose of substances containing these elements. Chelators have been used to treat dementia based on evidence that patients with Alzheimer s dementia have abnormally high levels of aluminum in their nerve cells. It s not clear why this may occnr. As a resnlt, chelating medications snch as desferrioxamine have been... 

One study suggested a possible link of aluminum in public water supplies with the occurrence of Alzheimer disease in 88 county districts of England and Wales. In districts in which the mean aluminum concentration in water exceeded O.llmg/1, rates were 1.5 times higher than in districts in which the mean levels were less than 0.01 mg/1. The results have been challenged on the basis of study design and on the interpretation of the relative significance of the dose of aluminum from water as a fraction of total dietary intake."... 

The main limitation of the coordination ROP of lactones remains the toxicity of the metal. For instance, aluminum derivatives are suspected to be involved in Alzheimer s disease, and tin(ll) bis-(2-ethyUiexanoate) is cytotoxic. In order to overcome this drawback, many groups have investigated the replacement of tin and aluminum alkoxides by initiators based on less toxic metals such as magnesium [54, 55] and calcium [56, 57] alkoxides. 

The neurotoxic effects of aluminum were first observed in people undergoing dialysis for treatment of kidney failure. This syndrome, called dialysis dementia, starts with speech disorders and progresses to dementia and convulsions. Symptoms corresponded with elevated aluminum levels commonly found in bone, brain, and muscle following 3 to 7 years of treatment. Elevated levels of aluminum were also found in the brains of people suffering from Alzheimer s disease. Despite considerable research, it is not clear if the aluminum accumulation in the brain is a cause of Alzheimer s disease or a result of changes in the brain associated with the disease. 

Anitha S, Rao KSJ (2003) The Complexity of Aluminum-DANN Interactions Relevance to Alzheimer s and other Neurologic Diseases. 104 79-98 Atwood DA, see Conley B (2003) 104 181-193... 

Only a small amount of aluminum is absorbed, and is usually readily eliminated in the urine, unless renal function is impaired. Then absorbed Ap+ can contribute to osteoporosis, encephalopathy, and proximal myopathy. There is some concern that excess of aluminium may contribute to the development of Alzheimer s disease and other neurodegen-erative disorders. 

The cause of AD is unknown although many hypotheses abound. The gene for one of the excessive amyloid proteins(b-type) has been associated with chromosome 21 at a point not far from a locus linked to some cases of familial Alzheimer s. Victims of Down s syndrome have an extra copy of chromosome 21 and usually fall prey to AD in their 4O s should they live to that age. However no all AD victims have a 21 mutation. Other causative theories involve accumulations of aluminum in the brain or the presence of a slow virus or an infectious protein substance called a prion. 

The toxicity of aluminum has been recognized most clearly by the development of bone disease caused by deposition of A1 in bones of patients on hemodialysis and in infants on intravenous therapy/ 6 Excessive A1 in the water used for dialysis may also cause brain damage. Dietary aluminum may be one cause of Alzheimer s disease/ h but this is controversial as is a possible role of aluminum in vaccines in causing inflammation in muscle.1) Solubilization of soil aluminum by acid rain has been blamed for the decline of forests in Europe and North America,) for the death of fish in acid waters,k and for very large reductions in yield for many crops/ An aluminum-resistant strain of buckwheat makes and secretes from its roots large amounts of oxalate which binds and detoxifies the Al3+ ions. ... 

Inorganic biochemists are also interested in two other classes of metals those that occur as environmental or other pollutants (lead, cadmium, mercury, aluminum in Alzheimer s disease etc.), and those which are important in medicine (lithium in mental health, platinum in anticancer drugs, gold in rheumatoid arthritis). The last group is considered in Chapter 62.2. 

Alzheimer s disease (AD) is the most prevalent form of senile dementia. Up to two million people in North America suffer from it, and it is the fourth cause of death in the elderly. The cause and treatment of this disease are therefore extremely important. Although the role of aluminum in AD and its in vivo chemistry is not known in detail, patients with Alzheimer s disease have been shown to have elevated aluminum concentrations in certain parts of the brain. Aluminum appears to concentrate in the nucleus. Crosslinks with DNA strands have been found. Crosslink formation can be reversed by sequestering the aluminum with EDTA. 

AD is a primary degenerative dementia affecting humans as young as in their forties. The German physician Alois Alzheimer first described the disease in 1906. It is characterized by senile plaques and paired helical filaments (PHFs), and the severity of the condition directly parallels their number.63 The involvement of aluminum in this and related dementias (dialysis encephalopathy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — Parkinson dementia in Guam) is currently a highly contested issue in neurological research. 

Bioinorganic chemistry will surely develop in an even wider area than it has thus far. Attention is likely to increase for studies on nonmetals, such as Se and As and their roles in, e.g., detoxification reactions. In addition, studies on elements such as aluminum (a possible causative factor in dialysis dementia and related to Alzheimer disease, senile dementia) and other abundant earth crust metals will increase. The role of bioinorganic catalysis to make and keep our environment clean has been mentioned in many of the previous chapters. It is to be expected that future catalytic processes, based on and derived from biological ones, will be as clean as possible, producing useful, harmless, and biodegradable products for the world. 

Exposure to aluminum is usually not harmful. Aluminum occurs naturally in many foods. Factory workers who breathe large amounts of aluminum dusts can have lung problems, such as coughing or changes that show up in chest X-rays. The use of breathing masks and controls on the levels of dust in factories have eliminated this problem. Some workers who breathe aluminum dusts or aluminum fumes have decreased performance in some tests that measure functions of the nervous system. Some people who have kidney disease store a lot of aluminum in their bodies. The kidney disease causes less aluminum to be removed from the body in the urine. Sometimes these people developed bone or brain diseases that doctors think were caused by the excess aluminum. Some studies show that people exposed to high levels of aluminum may develop Alzheimer s disease, but other studies have not found this to be true. We do not... 

A case control study by Salib and Hillier (1996) examined the possible relationship between the risk of Alzheimer s disease and occupational exposure to airborne aluminum. The occupation histories of patients with a clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer s disease (198 cases) were compared with two control groups patients with dementia other than Alzheimer s disease (164 cases) and patients with diagnoses other than dementia. Occupational histories were obtained from the patients via a questionnaire. No significant association between occupational exposure to aluminum dust or fumes and the risk of Alzheimer s disease were found (the odds ratio for the comparison with all controls was 0.98, 95% confidence interval of 0.53-1.75). 

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