Concerns that excess aluminum intake from cookware is somehow involved in the development of Alzheimer's disease have turned out to be a false alarm.
Origin of the Almuminum-Alzheimer's Theory
Two findings from the 1960s and 70s suggested that there might be a link between aluminum intake and Alzheimer's disease. One study found elevated levels of aluminum in the brains of people who had died with Alzheimer's disease. However, these studies had questionable methodology and gave inconsistent results. The aluminum may have been a result of the Alzheimer's, not a cause, or have been an experimental artifact. It was also found that people on kidney dialysis who unknowingly were given very high doses of intravenous aluminum sometimes developed cognitive deficits that were thought to be similar to Alzheimer's. This syndrome, called dialysis encephalopathy, was wrongly treated as an Alzheimer’s analogue. It was later shown to be clinically and pathologically different from Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, the two main findings that people use to support the aluminum-Alzheimer's link have been shown to be invalid.
More Recent Evidence
More recent studies with improved analysis techniques have indeed found elevated aluminum levels in the brains of Alzheimer's patients compared to controls. However, there was no indication that the excess aluminum caused the disease rather than being a result of the disease. Particularly telling are studies of people with high environmental exposure to aluminum, which have yielded mixed results rather than a consistent dose–response pattern expected for a major causal factor.
There is also the fact that your body absorbs very little of aluminum in your diet, about one-tenth of a percent. And dietary aluminum comes from numerous sources, including tea, cocoa, grains, vegetables, some antacid medicines, and many baked goods. After all, aluminum is one of the most common elements in our world! Even if aluminum did pose some health risks, the minute amount you might get from your cookware would be meaningless in the overall picture.
