High Aluminum Levels in Cerebrospinal Fluid of Patients with Neurodegenerative Diseases

Abstract

Aluminum is the most abundant metal on earth. It is not known to have any biological metabolism; conversely it has a toxic effect that has been related to several damages including some neurodegenerative diseases. We sampledcerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in 141 patients with different chronic diseases, assessing the levels of aluminum contained. Our aim was to assess differences in aluminum levels between neuro-degenerative and non-neurodegenerative diseases. We found that patients with neurodegenerative diseases have higher levels of aluminum in cerebrospinal fluid than other non-degenerative diseases. These findings support previous descriptions of a chronic life-time aluminum accumulation in CSF as an environmental contributor to the Patophysiology of neurodegeneration. While aluminum and neurodegenerative diseases have already been correlated in previous studies, this report is, to the best of our knowledge, the first that directly correlates levels of aluminum in CSF with clinical status. Further investigation based on these findings has to be done in order to determine if this correlation is causality of specific diseases. In the meantime we encourage a wider sampling of aluminum (and other metals) in CSF in both patients with a neurodegenerative disease and healthy population as well as the analysis of aluminum-containing products.