LONDON, April 20 (UPI) -- Aluminum linked to Alzheimer's disease has been controversial, because of little epidemiological data, but a British woman with high exposure had Alzheimer's.
A study published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry details how a 44-year-old woman who had been exposed to an accidental discharge of 20 tons of aluminum sulphate into the local water supply in 1988 died of a rare form of Alzheimer's disease.
The accidental discharge resulted in 20,000 residents in the Cornwall area being exposed to levels of aluminum around 500 to 3,000 times the acceptable limit as defined by the European Union.
In May 2003 the woman was referred to a neurologist for repeated headaches, difficulties in finding words, doing simple sums and hallucinations -- symptoms she had had for several months. Her condition worsened and she died in 2004.
Researchers say it is impossible to say whether the aluminum found in the woman's brain tissue caused the disease, but they advise those exposed be tested for intellectual impairment.
Daniel Perl of Mount Sinai School of Medicine says relatively little is known about environmental factors in the development of Alzheimer's disease, and a single case does not clarify that position.
