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Aluminium antiperspirant toxicity claim?
Donovan Puppyfucker
A dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered User regular
A dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered User regular
My girlfriend is convinced that aluminium in an aerosol anti-perspirant can 'seep' through your skin and cause Alzheimers disease. I do not believe this to be true. All I can find is about a million 'Moms wisdom' or alternative "medicine" websites saying yes. I know you shouldn't spray powdered aluminium on an object which will end up in someone's mouth, and that includes the breast of a mother.
Where can I find a comprehensive study that disproves her theory? I checked PubMed, and my search skills are just awful. I found three studies which were relevant to the idea, but couldn't access any more than an "abstract" one paragraph summary? I want to find out if aluminium can get through the skin and affect the brain.
Where can I find a comprehensive study that disproves her theory? I checked PubMed, and my search skills are just awful. I found three studies which were relevant to the idea, but couldn't access any more than an "abstract" one paragraph summary? I want to find out if aluminium can get through the skin and affect the brain.
Donovan Puppyfucker on
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Edit: Okay, so there's a bit of evidence to show the link between neurotoxic effects of aluminum (through inhalation, consumption, and other such methods) but the mechanisms of how it might induce or accelerate Alzheimer's disease is pretty murky. This is partially due to the frustrating nature of Alzheimer's itself - I won't get into Tau proteins or myelination right now.
Here's what you should read: http://books.google.ca/books?id=FxjjhXMrqk8C&lpg=PA75&ots=7AFWKe3r_D&dq=aluminum%20antiperspirant%20alzheimers&lr&pg=PA82#v=onepage&q&f=false
That provides a quasi-readable summary of the situation, albeit a little dated, and it references this study, which I can't find on EBSCOhost for the time being: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T84-4CPMC4H-J&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1990&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1727916245&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=89f5e3e5076a4dd30a43d084ee44012d&searchtype=a
Basically, Graves and his co-authors found that antiperspirant users (at least once a month) had an odds ratio of 1.6 of developing Alzheimer's over the controls. While the results are statistically significant, methodological errors and limitations make the findings not necessarily conclusive. Outside of that book I listed above, I did some searching of my own and I had a hard time finding any other major peer-reviewed studies specifically focusing on antiperspirants and Alzheimers. Or at least, any that weren't abstract-only and weren't impossible to understand.
Hopefully that works.
So, long story short? There's no conclusive evidence yet that antiperspirants may be a factor in Alzheimer's, but considering that there is historic data to suggest that aluminum can have toxic effects on the body in certain concentrations, that would definitely give your girlfriend a reason for her caution. As stated earlier, aluminum's metabolic mechanisms in the human body are in many ways still unknown. Doesn't hurt to be cautious.