6 ms·

Aluminum in brain tissue in autism

18 points by diyseguy 9y ago

elchief 9y ago
I remember my (hippie) mother telling me this as a child. Of course, she also thought it was bad to drink water when eating...
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  That's kinda a problem with a lot of the so-called traditional wisdom. There are accidental or intentional nuggets in there but they're mixed up with so much crap that you can't separate the wheat from the chaff.
- flatline 9y ago
  My non-hippie mom threw out all our aluminum pots and other cookware when I was about 10 for fear of its contributing to Alzheimer’s, which coincidentally she just passed from.
- vbuwivbiu 9y ago
  ..because if you drink water when eating you dilute stomach acid and your food doesn't digest properly
selimthegrim 9y ago
https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-exley-using-bad-science-to-demonize-aluminum-adjuvants-in-vaccines/ https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-exley...
aylons 9y ago
Please, read this before upvoting: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/move-over-christopher-shaw-theres-a-new-antivaccine-scientist-in-town/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/move-over-christopher-shaw-...
- WhitneyLand 9y ago
  He ought to be shot. For the damage I see these people cause to real families I know. So much wasted time, money on bad treatments, and worst, the emotional toll of being led down a path and duped over your child’s well being. Are these guys cranks who believe what they say or is it a simple grab for fame and fortune?
- exhilaration 9y ago
  We should upvote both the story and your comment. I've never seen such an elegant debunking of the suggestion that aluminum causes X disease and it would be a shame if the rest of HN readers never get to see it because this submission gets nuked.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
    I second that - I'm very grateful for the comment and I'm sorry to see the submission nuked.
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
  Even if all the numbers were correct, and the measurements correct, and there were a control group, and solid proof that aluminium actually caused autism... there would still be the issue that there's just not enough aluminum in the vaccines to account for the amount seen. According to [1] there should be about 4.4mg total from vaccines. If you add up all the maximum numbers, and get all the vaccines (both pediatric and adult, as well as the different variants that cover some diseases multiple times like getting Hep A, Hep B, and HepA/B combined vaccines you get 7.5mg. Yet this study is reporting a brain with 11ug/g aluminium. For an average brain mass of 1.3kg that comes out to about 14mg total aluminum: nearly twice the maximum possible vaccine-related dose. So the question of where all the extra aluminium came from would remain! Of course we ingest an order of magnitude more aluminium through food than gets injected in vaccines, so avoiding vaccines would still be an idiotic idea. [1] http://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-ingredients/aluminum http://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-cente...
- diyseguy 9y ago
fishcolorbrick 9y ago
> These are some of the highest values for aluminium in human brain tissue yet recorded and one has to question why, for example, the aluminium content of the occipital lobe of a 15 year old boy would be 8.74 (11.59) μg/g dry wt.? The phrase, "one has to question" in the abstract jumps out at me as unusual in science writing.
cheeseprocedure 9y ago
I’m a layperson, but these sample sizes seem small. Is this a legitimate concern?
pmalynin 9y ago
The standard deviations in these numbers include the null hypothesis....
biocomment 9y ago
It's unfortunate that the researchers didn't perform the same analysis on control samples, i.e. brain tissue from similar individuals without an ASD diagnosis. They say that the method of measuring aluminium is "established and fully validated", but this a weak claim. Really, they should have simultaneously performed the same method on non-ASD brain samples, to eliminate the effect of any experimental mishaps, and to find the background level of the binding of the stain to non-aluminium compounds. With its lack of any control data to compare against, this study sounds like a waste of valuable brain samples.
- calebm 9y ago
  Isn't this referencing a control group? "Previous measurements of brain aluminium, including our 60 brain study [13], have allowed us to define loose categories of brain aluminium content beginning with ≤1.00 μg/g dry wt. as pathologically benign (as opposed to ‘normal’)."
  - biocomment 9y ago
    No, this is referencing a previous study. A control group in this study is needed to demonstrate that the particular method they used, and the experimental environment they used it in, can actually show a difference in aluminium concentrations between ASD and non-ASD samples.
    - calebm 9y ago
      Ah, good point.
chrisamiller 9y ago
The senior author has a long history of bad science on autism and is funded by an anti-vax group. There's a [complete takedown of this bad science here]((https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-exley-using-bad-science-to-demonize-aluminum-adjuvants-in-vaccines/ https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-exley...) There is a reason that this is published in the "Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology", and not in something more reputable.
- diyseguy 9y ago
  He publishes in journals like this because they are not paywalled like the better known ones are.
esaym 9y ago
So aluminum was found? So what is the problem with this being "bad science"?
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
  No control group, wildly high variance. The data is ridiculously noisy, and the results aren't statistically significant. The normal range for aluminium concentration falls within the margin of error for the measurements of the study.
ihenriksen 9y ago
I've read that Aluminum is used in medicine as a catalyst, in toothpast as an abrasive, its in your dental cement, used as food additives, in your cooking utensils, used in vaccines as an adjuvant, etc. Some say Aluminum is linked to Alzheimer's, types of cancer, and now even autism. Could modern life in the west cause toxic levels of aluminum in our bodies? Sodium-rich water can supposedly detox your body from aluminum, personally I drink water with a very high Sodium content, unfortunaltly some of the brands contain a lot of fluoride - you just can't win :) ...
- vorotato 9y ago
  Most westerners don't get cancer, and most westerners don't get Alzheimers, yet most westerners consume all the things you mentioned. Perhaps the problem isn't as simple as consuming the right things.
vorotato 9y ago
You heard it here folks, Autism makes you chew aluminum foil.

18 points by diyseguy 9y ago

I remember my (hippie) mother telling me this as a child. Of course, she also thought it was bad to drink water when eating...

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
That's kinda a problem with a lot of the so-called traditional wisdom. There are accidental or intentional nuggets in there but they're mixed up with so much crap that you can't separate the wheat from the chaff.
flatline 9y ago
My non-hippie mom threw out all our aluminum pots and other cookware when I was about 10 for fear of its contributing to Alzheimer’s, which coincidentally she just passed from.
vbuwivbiu 9y ago
..because if you drink water when eating you dilute stomach acid and your food doesn't digest properly

selimthegrim 9y ago

https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-exley-using-bad-science-to-demonize-aluminum-adjuvants-in-vaccines/ https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-exley...

aylons 9y ago

Please, read this before upvoting: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/move-over-christopher-shaw-theres-a-new-antivaccine-scientist-in-town/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/move-over-christopher-shaw-...

WhitneyLand 9y ago
He ought to be shot. For the damage I see these people cause to real families I know. So much wasted time, money on bad treatments, and worst, the emotional toll of being led down a path and duped over your child’s well being. Are these guys cranks who believe what they say or is it a simple grab for fame and fortune?
exhilaration 9y ago
We should upvote both the story and your comment. I've never seen such an elegant debunking of the suggestion that aluminum causes X disease and it would be a shame if the rest of HN readers never get to see it because this submission gets nuked.
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  I second that - I'm very grateful for the comment and I'm sorry to see the submission nuked.
SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
Even if all the numbers were correct, and the measurements correct, and there were a control group, and solid proof that aluminium actually caused autism... there would still be the issue that there's just not enough aluminum in the vaccines to account for the amount seen. According to [1] there should be about 4.4mg total from vaccines. If you add up all the maximum numbers, and get all the vaccines (both pediatric and adult, as well as the different variants that cover some diseases multiple times like getting Hep A, Hep B, and HepA/B combined vaccines you get 7.5mg. Yet this study is reporting a brain with 11ug/g aluminium. For an average brain mass of 1.3kg that comes out to about 14mg total aluminum: nearly twice the maximum possible vaccine-related dose. So the question of where all the extra aluminium came from would remain! Of course we ingest an order of magnitude more aluminium through food than gets injected in vaccines, so avoiding vaccines would still be an idiotic idea. [1] http://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-ingredients/aluminum http://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-cente...
diyseguy 9y ago

fishcolorbrick 9y ago

> These are some of the highest values for aluminium in human brain tissue yet recorded and one has to question why, for example, the aluminium content of the occipital lobe of a 15 year old boy would be 8.74 (11.59) μg/g dry wt.? The phrase, "one has to question" in the abstract jumps out at me as unusual in science writing.

cheeseprocedure 9y ago

I’m a layperson, but these sample sizes seem small. Is this a legitimate concern?

pmalynin 9y ago

The standard deviations in these numbers include the null hypothesis....

biocomment 9y ago

It's unfortunate that the researchers didn't perform the same analysis on control samples, i.e. brain tissue from similar individuals without an ASD diagnosis. They say that the method of measuring aluminium is "established and fully validated", but this a weak claim. Really, they should have simultaneously performed the same method on non-ASD brain samples, to eliminate the effect of any experimental mishaps, and to find the background level of the binding of the stain to non-aluminium compounds. With its lack of any control data to compare against, this study sounds like a waste of valuable brain samples.

calebm 9y ago
Isn't this referencing a control group? "Previous measurements of brain aluminium, including our 60 brain study [13], have allowed us to define loose categories of brain aluminium content beginning with ≤1.00 μg/g dry wt. as pathologically benign (as opposed to ‘normal’)."
- biocomment 9y ago
  No, this is referencing a previous study. A control group in this study is needed to demonstrate that the particular method they used, and the experimental environment they used it in, can actually show a difference in aluminium concentrations between ASD and non-ASD samples.
  - calebm 9y ago
    Ah, good point.

chrisamiller 9y ago

The senior author has a long history of bad science on autism and is funded by an anti-vax group. There's a [complete takedown of this bad science here]((https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-exley-using-bad-science-to-demonize-aluminum-adjuvants-in-vaccines/ https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-exley...) There is a reason that this is published in the "Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology", and not in something more reputable.

diyseguy 9y ago
He publishes in journals like this because they are not paywalled like the better known ones are.

esaym 9y ago

So aluminum was found? So what is the problem with this being "bad science"?

SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
No control group, wildly high variance. The data is ridiculously noisy, and the results aren't statistically significant. The normal range for aluminium concentration falls within the margin of error for the measurements of the study.

ihenriksen 9y ago

I've read that Aluminum is used in medicine as a catalyst, in toothpast as an abrasive, its in your dental cement, used as food additives, in your cooking utensils, used in vaccines as an adjuvant, etc. Some say Aluminum is linked to Alzheimer's, types of cancer, and now even autism. Could modern life in the west cause toxic levels of aluminum in our bodies? Sodium-rich water can supposedly detox your body from aluminum, personally I drink water with a very high Sodium content, unfortunaltly some of the brands contain a lot of fluoride - you just can't win :) ...

vorotato 9y ago
Most westerners don't get cancer, and most westerners don't get Alzheimers, yet most westerners consume all the things you mentioned. Perhaps the problem isn't as simple as consuming the right things.

vorotato 9y ago

You heard it here folks, Autism makes you chew aluminum foil.