Alzheimer's: New Treatments But No Prevention Strategy
CategoriesWhile we hear that the Johnson & Johnson Alzheimer's drug Reminyl is associated with higher death rates than placebo, a new "scientific breakthrough" is already in the pipeline. By removing plaques in the brains of mice, which in humans are normally associated with Alzheimer's disease, it seems that some of the nerve damage which is characteristic of the disease, may have been reverted as well. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine are claiming as much, as recently reported by BBC.
Alzheimer's is a largely age-dependent disease. According to the same BBC article, it is estimated that 2% to 5% of people over 65 years of age and up to 20% of those over 85 years of age have Alzheimer's telltale signs.
There is no advice on how to prevent the disease from developing in the first place. "The cause of the disease is not known", we are told and medicine is doing what is possible to find a cure. Huh? The cause is not known and we are talking about a cure?
This seems to be one of the cases where the cause is one of the "unspeakables", one of those things we happily go along doing, poisoning our environment and our bodies in the process.
Canadian medical geographer Dr. Harald Foster provides the goods. His most recent work "What really causes Alzheimer's disease" can be downloaded in PDF format for free from Foster's site. Anyone at risk of developing the disease or who already has it, would be well advised to get a copy and read. Foster tells us which contaminants to avoid and what options to consider for preventing and even reversing the formation of destructive plaques and neurofibrillary tangles that inhibit brain function.
While toxic aluminium does accumulate in the brain and is known to cause nerve damage, there seem to be a number of contributing factors, such as impaired detox mechanisms and missing minerals in foods, notably magnesium, which predispose us to the disease.
Foster discusses what happens in the brain to cause loss of myelin tissue, and which minerals are missing from our western diet, worsening the problem. He points to a possible preventive strategy, but in the end, it is our own choice. Is is our health going to be more important to us than industrial production including the attendant pollution?
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WHAT REALLY CAUSES ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
There is currently a global Alzheimer’s pandemic involving tens of millions of victims. In the USA alone, the number of those affected is expected to reach 14 million by 2050.1 This suffering and the financial costs associated with it are unnecessary. Alzheimer’s disease is caused by aluminum and is particularly common in those carrying the APO E4 allele(s), who are more susceptible to this toxic metal because they are less capable than the general population of removing brain beta-amyloid and tau proteins. As a consequence, such individuals are at higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, as these abnormal proteins build up in the brain and form neuritic plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. Naturally, this process occurs more often and most rapidly in regions that promote the deposition of beta-amyloid and tau. Such “harmful” environments are those in which drinking water is acidic, high in monomeric aluminum, and lack magnesium, calcium, and silicic acid. Under these circumstances, aluminum enters the brain and impairs various enzymes, including choline acetyltransferase, calcium/calmodulin kinase II, alkaline phosphatase, and phospholipase
A2. The result of this process is the abnormal brain pathology seen in Alzheimer’s disease patients and the disrupted biochemistry associated with it. In an earlier publication,2 I called this explanation of the downward spiral, known as Alzheimer’s disease, Foster’s Multiple Antagonist Hypothesis.Retrogenesis, the loss of abilities in cognition, coordination, behaviour, language, and feeding in the reverse order that they were acquired, occurs in Alzheimer’s disease. This is, in part, because aluminum inhibits at least three membrane-bound enzymes, Na+K+ ATPase, acetylcholinesterase, and, most interestingly, the myelin-specific enzyme 2’3’-cyclic nucleotide phosphohydrolase.3 As a result, it can cause rapid thinning of the myelin sheath4 and increase its susceptibility to oxidative stress.5 It seems very likely that these destructive processes are linked to demyelinization and so to associated retrogenesis.
The APO E4 allele plays a key role in promoting Alzheimer’s disease because of the inefficiency with which those possessing this genetic aberration can remove brain beta-amyloid and tau.6 Genetically, however, there is more to Alzheimer’s disease than the APO E4 gene. To date, four genes have been identified as playing a role in either early- or late-onset Alzheimer’s disease: beta-amyloid precursor protein, presenilin-1, presenilin-2, and apolipoprotein E genes.7 Workers have linked most of these variants to familial early-onset Alzheimer’s, but the apolipoprotein E4 allele is a relatively common risk factor for developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.8
Considerable progress has been made in interpreting the significance of such genetic variants. To illustrate, mutations in the presenilin-1 gene seem associated with increased superoxide production and greater vulnerability to amyloid beta peptide toxicity.9 Interestingly, mutations in the presenilin genes, which are linked to more than 40 percent of all familial Alzheimer’s cases, cause enhanced production of an abnormal form of beta-amyloid precursor protein.10 This protein is longer than normal, aggregates more rapidly, kills neurons in culture more effectively, and precipitates preferentially to form amyloid plaques. The same elongated protein also is produced as a result of mutations in the gene encoding beta-amyloid precursor protein.
The literature suggests, therefore, that the gene variants that predispose to both early- and late-onset Alzheimer’s disease do so because they either increase susceptibility to, or mimic, aluminum-related degenerative processes. That is, the genetic mutations involved in promoting the development of Alzheimer’s disease duplicate some of aluminum’s deleterious impacts on the brain and, in so doing, encourage at least one of the following: the growth of neuritic plaques or neurofibrillary tangles, excessive free radical formation, and/or higher neural oxidative stress. Consequently, unfortunate individuals carrying any one of the genetic variants are much more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease, even if they are not exposed to the aluminum excess, or to the vitamin and mineral deficiencies, that are normally associated with its etiology.
Alzheimer’s disease incidence appears to be rising faster than the population is aging. Obviously, such an increase cannot be due to any genetic cause. One does not have “epidemics” of genetic diseases, simply because the human genome does not change rapidly enough to trigger them. If, as the evidence strongly hints, Alzheimer’s disease is becoming generally more common, it must be because the “harmful environments” that trigger it are now more widespread. There is no doubt that, globally, soils and water are becoming more acidic and, consequently, aluminum more soluble. Throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries, as a result of expanding fossil fuel consumption, ever increasing quantities of sulphur and nitrogen were emitted into the atmosphere. Here they were converted into sulphuric and nitric acids, elevating the acidity of subsequent precipitation.11 Such acid rain has caused extensive damage to the environment at local, regional, and even global scales. It has been particularly problematic in northern and central Europe, eastern North America, and eastern China where it has been associated with many health costs.12 Simultaneously, commercial fertilizers have been used with increasing frequency. These consist predominantly of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. As a consequence of heavy crop yields, agricultural soils have been depleted of several minerals that are important for human health, including calcium and magnesium.
To illustrate, Marier and coworkers,13 in Water Hardness, Human Health and the Importance of Magnesium, have pointed out how this mineral is becoming less and less common in the food we eat because of the fertilizers used in the “Green Revolution.” Food processing and cooking also remove minerals from food, and packaging and canning often add aluminum to it. As a result, most of the populations of the Western World appear to be very magnesium and often calcium deficient.14-15
Simply put, drinking water is becoming more acidic, and so aluminum is more soluble, foodstuffs contain fewer minerals as the result of commercial fertilizers, and many of the remaining minerals are removed by processing and cooking. We are creating, therefore, “harmful environments” that allow aluminum to reach the human brain more easily, where it then inhibits numerous crucial enzymes. It is not surprising that the highest known Alzheimer’s disease mortality rates in the world occur in southern Norway.16 This is because the region’s drinking water is being made highly acidic by polluted rainfall, lacks calcium and magnesium because of the local geology, and contains high levels of aluminum.17 From a scientific point of view, all these risk factors, with the exception of genetic inheritance, are relatively simple to mitigate. Alzheimer’s disease, in theory, therefore, is easy to avoid. There is no need for a pandemic, or the $100 billion annual loss that it causes in the USA alone. Theoretically, it should be a relatively simple matter to pass legislation reducing levels of aluminum in, and promoting the addition of calcium, magnesium, and perhaps silicic acid to, drinking water. It would seem to be in the best interest of every government to save the billions of dollars spent in caring for Alzheimer’s disease victims. Unfortunately, politics is rarely so logical. Not only do governments show little interest in increasing the magnesium content of drinking water, they routinely allow the use of aluminum sulfate as a flocculant by water treatment plants. This additive reduces the amount of sediment in the water supply, but simultaneously greatly increases levels of dissolved aluminum, especially if the water is acidic.18
The western diet promotes Alzheimer’s disease in three distinct ways. Firstly, it tends to be deficient in calcium and magnesium,19-20 making those who eat it very susceptible to aluminum toxicity. Secondly, many foods are canned, wrapped, and/or cooked in aluminum. The more acid the food, the more easily it dissolves this metal. Thirdly, maltol is added to many processed foods in an attempt to “improve” flavour. This additive facilitates the passage of aluminum through the blood-brain barrier. There can be little doubt also that the typical western diet is too low in many minerals. Consider, for example, magnesium. This occurs at relatively high levels in unrefined whole grain cereals and in green leafy vegetables, nuts, seeds, lentils
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