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AA AHCI-1 Document Information:
Title
Aluminum and Health a Review of the Issues, the Efforts and the Knowledge
The Aluminum Association Inc.
Publication Date:
Sep 1, 2003
Scope:
INTRODUCTION
In 1886, the first practical and economic process for producing
aluminum metal was discovered.
Cookware was the first commercial application for the new metal. It
was not long after that
salesman of competing cookware alleged various adverse health effects
from exposure to aluminum.
The first comprehensive treatise on aluminum compounds in food was
published in 1927(Footnote *).
The author, Dr. E.E. Smith, then a fellow and former president of the
New York Academy of Sciences,
presented considerable evidence that aluminum is not injurious to
health. He added, "Unfortunately,
this question has become controversial by reason of conflicting
commercial interests."
These claims have persisted despite the fact that the vast majority of
the scientific and medical
communities neither originate nor support them. To the contrary, the
U.S. Food and Drug
Administration considers metallic aluminum and a number of aluminum
compounds as "GRAS": Generally
Recognized As Safe.
The Aluminum Association(Footnote †) in 1955 asked scientists
at the Kettering Laboratory of
the University of Cincinnati to search out and review the world's
literature on aluminum and
health. The investigators reviewed more than 800 books and technical
articles, and published their
findings in 1957 in the American Medical Association's Archives of
Industrial Health. They
concluded that there is no need for concern among the public regarding
hazards to human health from
exposure to aluminum products. The review was updated in 1974 by
Kettering researchers to include
an additional 700 publications, and the results were published in
Environmental Health perspective,
a publication of the National Institute of Environmental Health
Sciences. The basic conclusions
were reaffirmed.
Allegations concerning neurological effects of aluminum began
appearing in the media in the
mid-1970's. Aluminum, it was claimed, caused senility and was deemed a
factor in Alzheimer's
disease (AD), then known as "presenile dementia." Recommendations were
made to avoid aluminum in
the diet and to avoid aluminum products for cooking or storing foods.
These claims and "medical recommendations" did not come from the
scientific or medical communities
but were loosely based on results of a few scientific studies then in
progress.
A task force of the Aluminum Association's Health Committee visited
several leading investigators
for first-hand discussions of these studies. We learned that aluminum
was also being linked with
two conditions occurring in some patients with kidney failure:
"dialysis dementia," a fatal
neurological disorder, and "osteomalacia," a bone disease.
In 1979, the Association again turned to the Kettering Laboratory
staff for an in-depth review of
the neurological implications of aluminum. The Kettering team
published its report in 1981,
entitled "Neurotoxicity of Aluminum." Based on a critical review of
about 90 articles, the report
concluded that "there is at present no direct clinical or experimental
evidence that aluminum is
neurotoxic to humans or animals under ordinary conditions of
environmental exposure." It was,
however, felt that gaps exist in the knowledge of the significance of
aluminum in the human body.
This is principally because aluminum was not generally regarded as
posing a health problem in the
past and, hence, drew little scientific interest or study.
Between 1980 and 1988, a research team at the University of Cincinnati
continuously monitored and
reviewed the literature on all aspects of aluminum and health. Since
1988, the search and review of
the literature has been conducted for the Association at the New York
State Institute for Basic
Research in Developmental Disabilities (IBR).
The need was recognized for basic information on the way aluminum gets
into the body, how much
typically is absorbed, where it goes, and what happens once it gets
there. To obtain this
information, the Association set into place a long-range research
program, including:
• The establishment of a Center for Trace Element Studies at IBR
to provide basic research
into effects of aluminum in the brain and continuing review of the
world's literature on aluminum
and health;
• Fundamental studies of Alzheimer's disease at laboratories of
the National Institute on
Aging (NIA);
• Studies of absorption of aluminum in the human body at the
Harwell Laboratories of AEA
Technologies in the U.K.;
• A study of clearance and translocation of aluminum oxide from
lungs at the New York
University School of Medicine;
• Analysis of aluminum in the body and brain at the Universities
of Kentucky and Virginia and
the IBR and NIA Laboratories;
• Analysis of aluminum in body fluids following occupational
exposure at the Universities of
North Carolina and Pittsburgh;
• Estimation of dietary intake of aluminum at Hazleton
Laboratories and the University of
Wisconsin; and
• Studies of the effects of aluminum on bone at Duke University.
In order to encourage open discussion on the subject, the Association
sponsored and participated in
a number of conferences on aluminum and health. The Association also
sponsored a monograph,
"Aluminum and Health - A Critical Review," edited by Dr. Hillel
Gitelman of the University of North
Carolina. Published in 1989, it represented a compendium of what was
known about aluminum and its
interaction with human biology.
In 2000, the Association joined in with the International Aluminium
Institute and a number of
national aluminum associations to form a Global Health Research
Working Committee to fund and
provide oversight for needed health studies on an international basis.
This paper is an attempt to present for the lay audience a review of
the issues and the efforts by
the aluminum industry to develop a better understanding of the role of
aluminum, if any, in the
human body.
Footnote * - References are found at the end of the paper.
Footnote † - The Aluminum Association is a non-profit
organization that represents aluminum
companies in the United States and abroad. Its member companies
produce primary and secondary
aluminum metal and semi-fabricated mill products.
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