Is There Treatment For Excess Aluminum?
Possibilities for treatments of excess aluminum in the body have been suggested by a number of different researchers. D.R.C. McLachlan and colleagues suggest decreasing the amount of the aluminum with the trivalent chelating agent desferrioxamine (DFO). The results of tests monitoring a group of AD patients taking DFO and one without showed that the rate of cognitive decline of the no DFO patients was twice that of the group receiving the DFO1. Another study using chelating agents as a method to slow the progression of AD was one led by G. Fasman, concluding that the use of silicates to chelate the aluminum in the body could possibly be used to help slow the build up of aluminum in the brain2. Progress in this area of research could play an important role in the possible treatment and even prevention of AD.
1 McLachlan, D.R. et al. "Risk for neuropathologically confirmed Alzheimers disease and residual aluminum in municipal drinking water employing weighted residential histories." Neurology. 46 (1996): 401-405.
2 Fasman, G D., and Moore, C.D. "The solubilization of model Alzheimer tangles: Reversing the b-sheet conformation induced by aluminum with silicates." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 91 (1994): 11232- 11235.
Jennifer McGilton
mcgilton@u.arizona.edu
10 March 1997
http://student.biology.arizona.edu/ad