Aging, Aluminum and Alzheimer's

Memory loss and senility are the bogeymen of baby boomers. Alzheimer’s now tops the lists in the growing pharmacopoeia of diseases "for which no cure can be found." International drug dealer Novartis issues the doomsday warning that "Alzheimer’s is more than memory loss": it affects "global functioning and cognition, and results in disorientation, mood swings, personality change" and loss of initiative. It’s epidemic.
Alzheimer’s angst began in 1906 when a German physician by the name of Alois Alzheimer dissected the brain of a 54-year-old woman who had died of gradual muscular and mental deterioration. What he found was a shrunken brain full of senile plaque and twisted like spaghetti. Ninety-five years later Alzheimer’s disease is as fatal as cancer and runs a predictable course of progressive dementia and seizures, resulting in death!

According to Novartis, Exelon (rivastigmine tartrate) is the answer.

Exelon inhibits the production of cholinesterase, an enzyme that breaks down choline-ester into its choline and ester components. The drug passes the blood-brain barrier, is rapidly metabolized and eliminated through the kidneys. The "precise mechanism is unknown," but it’s "postulated to exert a therapeutic effect."

There is no evidence that rivastigmine alters the course of the underlying dementing process. Side-effects include liver toxicity. Yet rivastigmine tartrate capsules received FDA (US) marketing clearance last year, based on a study of 3,900 patients worldwide. It was "the largest phase III clinical program of an Alzheimer disease medication to date." Almost all the subjects were on other medications. Based on the uncertain results of approximately 4,000 people--out of a global population of more than six billion--doctors are dealing this drug to millions--at a cost of $160 (CN) for 60 capsules!

There’s a better way. In 1994 Dr D.R.C. McLaughlin, professor of medicine and physiology at the University of Toronto, built on the 1962 discovery of the aluminum connection in English mill workers: he looked for aluminum in the brains of Alzheimer’s autopsies and found up to four times as much as normal!

Aluminum comprises about 15 per cent of the earth’s crust. Acid rain, as a result of industrial pollution, becomes our drinking water. Aluminum is used in baking powder, underarm deodorant and antacids. Aluminum pots are still used for cooking. Soft drink and beer containers are made from it and some toothpastes contain aluminum. We’re swimming in it.

As part of their research, U of T scientists put their patients on heavy metal chelators (substances that bind with heavy metals to remove them from the body) and mental deterioration stopped abruptly once treatment was started. Most people showed improved intellectual ability, and the earlier treatment was started, the greater the improvement. Other research shows that amino acids cysteine and methionine arrest senility; orthomolecular physicians recommend a full program of vitamins and minerals in mega-doses.

All of this is anathema to the orthodox medical fraternity. Chelation therapy is illegal in most Canadian provinces and orthomolecular physicians are considered fringe "quacks." Medical science understands drugs and vaccines, and the hunt is on to capture and tame the "Alzheimer gene." One study decided the children of large families were most at risk and risk is increased eight per cent for each new child! Five or more siblings added up to a 39 per cent risk and seven to nine children in the family is an almost certain prognosis of developing dementia! (Medical Post, April 4, 2000)

Last year the World Alzheimer Congress pledged to "eliminate the threat of Alzheimer’s disease to future generations" and make it a "distant memory." But basic nutrition and chelating heavy metals from elderly brains is just too simple a route to consider. Besides, it would compromise the burgeoning Alzheimer’s industry, which is poised for healthy profit. Once more, Canadians need to use their own brains in making decisions for survival into active old age.