Our Aluminium Age: Material Abundance and BioToxicity Why are aluminium and silicon (3rd and 2nd most common elements in the earth's crust), entirely absent from biological processes of all living things? What happens when aluminium is ingested by humans? Professor Chris Exley's research group in bioinorganic chemistry at Keele University is publishing the connections between ingested aluminium and modern degenerative diseases such as autism, multiple sclerosis, breast cancer, alzheimers, parkinsons, and others, that have higher prevalence in the modern developed world, the side-effect of living in the aluminum age. [1] BBC News covered this in a 11 minute segment [8].

Aluminium - what it is and what it is used for.
The Aluminium (Al) Age is arguably the next age after the Stone, Copper (Cu), Bronze (Cu+Sn), and Iron (Fe) ages. Aluminium is a soft, corrosion resistant, low-density, ductile, non-magnetic metal, is the third most abundant element in the earth's crust at 8% (after oxygen, and silicon), and the most common metallic element. It is valued for its lightness, malleability, and its high strength when alloyed. Uses range from the industrial (car bodies, ship hulls, airplane fuselages and space shuttle exteriors, coins, paints) to the domestic (foil, saucepans, soda cans) to cosmetics and food (anti-perspirants, cosmetics, antacids, food coloring agents, and infant formulas). The metal and its alloys, salts and ions are now ubiquitous in modern life.

It has not always been this way. Though aluminium salts such as alum have been used since antiquity as pickling agents, and as astringents in medicine, the uses of aluminium metals and aluminium salts has grown rapidly in the last 60 years.

Production History of Alumunium
Aluminium metal was first produced in 1825 by the Danish chemist Hans Orsted. A production method at lower cost was developed in 1854 by French chemist Henri Deville, enabling, by 1867, aluminium wire and foil to be developed as applications. Large scale industrial production methods were developed in 1888 simultaneously by American engineer Charles Hall and French engineer Paul Heroult. By the first decades of the 20th century, aluminium utensils had replaced copper and cast iron tableware, and by 1958 the aluminium soda can had been developed. Aluminium joined the London Metal exchange in 1978.

Aluminium Today
The global aluminium industry produces & consumes 58M tonnes of aluminium (2015) with 6 of the largest producers accounting for 40% of global output: Rusal (Russia), Chalco (China), Rio Tinto Alcan (UK/Aus), Alcoa (US)

With usage comes ingestion and with ingestion of aluminium comes biological consequences and new illnesses. Ingested aluminium has been linked to modern diseases (autism, multiple sclerosis, breast cancer, alzheimers, parkinsons, high blood pressure, sperm quality, and vascular disease) that have higher prevalence in the modern developed world.

The findings are thought-provoking. Consider Alzheimer's, where the finding is that brain content of aluminium is a catalyst for Alzheimer's disease: "In the absence of pathologically significant deposits of aluminium in brain tissue there would not be any (acute) Alzheimer’s disease within a normal lifespan of say 100 years." [4,5]

See references for further findings to autism [3,A], alzheimer's disease [4,5,B,C], MS [7], semen quality, and breast cancer [6,D].

Silicon: an antidote to aluminium toxicity?
Chris Exley's research team has found that silicon-rich mineral water can reduce the body burden of toxic aluminium by up to 70% over 12 weeks. [2,E]
Unfortunately for us who live in the UK, tap water here contains very low levels of dissolved silicon (called silica). Supplementation, through bottled mineral water, would require minimum concentrations of 30ppm (mg/L) of silica. The researchers used Acilis from Silica Waters (https://www.silicawaters.com/about-us/)

How it works: Silica in its water based form (orthosilicic acid or OSA) is able to cross the gut wall and bind with aluminium particles in the blood, safely flushing them out, thereby providing natural and non-invasive removal of aluminium from the body. [2,E,K]


References

*Peer-Reviewed Research Papers* https://www.keele.ac.uk/aluminium/publications/

*Popular Science Articles*

1) Aluminium Age, Prof. Chris Exley, 21 Mar 2017, Hippocratic Post
https://www.hippocraticpost.com/mens-health/the-aluminium-age/

2) Drinking Silicon-Rich Mineral Water, 15 Mar 2017
https://www.hippocraticpost.com/nursing/why-everyone-should-drink-silicon-rich-mineral-water/
Silicon rich mineral water can reduce the body burden of toxic aluminium by up to 70% over 12 weeks.

3) Aluminium & Autism: What Next?, Chris Exley, 28 Mar 2018, Hippocratic Post
https://www.hippocraticpost.com/mental-health/aluminium-and-autism-what-next/

4) Strong Evidence Linking Aluminium and Alzheimer's, Chris Exley, Dec 2016, Hippocratic Post
https://www.hippocraticpost.com/mental-health/strong-evidence-linking-aluminium-alzheimers/

5) No Aluminium, No Alzheimer's Disease, Chris Exley, June 2017, Hippocratic Post
https://www.hippocraticpost.com/ageing/no-aluminium-no-alzheimers-disease/

6) Aluminium in Antiperspirants linked to Breast Cancer.
https://www.hippocraticpost.com/cancer/antiperspirants-increase-risk-breast-cancer/

7) A Role for Aluminium in Multiple Sclerosis
https://www.hippocraticpost.com/innovation/role-aluminium-multiple-sclerosis/

8) BBC News: Combating Toxic Attack from Aluminium
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beRdmZin5Os

*Selected Research Journal Articles*

A) Aluminium in Brain Tissue in Autism, Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology, March 2018, Vol 46, pp.76-82, Mold, Umar, King, Exley.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0946672X17308763

B) Aluminium in Brain Tissue in Familial Alzheimer's Disease, Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology, March 2017, Vol 40, pp. 30-36, Mirza, King, Troakes, Exley
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0946672X16303777

C) Aluminium should now be considered a primary etiological factor in Alzheimer's disease, Journal of Alzheimer's Disease Reports, June 2017, vol 1, no. 1, pp.23-25, Chris Exley
https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-disease-reports/adr170010

D) Use of Underarm Cosmetic Products in Relation to Risk of Breast Cancer: A Case-Control Study, EBio Medicine, Vol22, Aug 2017, pp.22-23, Linhart, Talasz, Exley, http://et.al
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352396417302335

E) Urinary Excretion of Aluminium and Silicon in Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, Dec 17, eBioMedicine, Vol 26, pp.60-67, by Jones, Linhart, Hawkins, Exley
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352396417304280

F) Human Exposure to Aluminium
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2013/EM/C3EM00374D#!divAbstract

G) Aluminium Content of Infant Formulas is too High
https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2431-13-162

H) Aluminium in Human Sweat
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0946672X13001612

I) What is the Risk of Aluminium as a NeuroToxin?
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1586/14737175.2014.915745

J) Why industry propaganda and political interference cannot disguise the inevitable role played by human exposure to aluminum in neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2014.00212/full

K) Benefits of Orthosilicic Acid (OSA)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3546016/

Other References:

i) Bioinorganic Chemistry Research Group, Keele University (research into Aluminium and Silicon in Biology)
https://www.keele.ac.uk/aluminium/groupmembers/chrisexley/

ii) Periodic Table
https://www.ptable.com/

iii) Aluminium (Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium

iv) Aluminium Production (RUSAL)
https://rusal.ru/en/aluminium/manufacturers/

v) Orthosilicic acid (Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicic_acid