In article , "Don K"
wrote:

"paghat" wrote in message
news
In article , "Don K"
wrote:

I, too, like to make my own decisions.
The post I was initially responding to, said, "anyone with aluminum
kitchen pots & utensils should toss them immediately".
Since there is no reputable scientific organization that has come to
the same conclusion, it qualifies as a crackpot advice.

Depends on if you think some of the leading scientific institutions are
reputable. If you DO bother to base your decision on having actually
checked the scientific data, you will find many who doubt cans & pots can
be a source of the aluminum deposits in alzheimer brain tissue, but do
think it could be aluminates from medications, deodorants, antacids, etc;
others think it could be neither; still others think the door is wide open
for it to be either or both. Several studies do show categorically that
the aluminum enters the bloodstream then the brain tissue through diet,
with no source entirely ruled out. Now you may think it crackpot, but in
this case, I've read the studies or their abstracts, & wasn't relieved of
my sense that it's on the REASONABLE side of safety to avoid aluminum. So
I wouldn't cook in aluminum (not that I ever did), I won't drink from
aluminum cans, I won't use a an antacid with aluminates. Is it paranoid?
Not according to Dr. Barry Thomas whose Australian study showed
CONCLUSIVELY that aluminum ingested by rats accumulates in their brains.

Dr. Barry Thomas is a consultant for Health Canada.

Actually Dr. Thomas is retired, though still cited as senior researcher on
sundry research projects involving toxicity of drinking water, & cited on
the specific rat-modeled Australian Institute for Biomedical Research
study as that research's "Chief Directorate." If you need an explanation
for how you could be the head of a study not personally conducted, then
it's not surprising you also don't understand the outcomes if you don't
understand the process. The hands-on work was overseen by Dr. Judie
Walton. There were a slew of other authors in the symposium papers
eventually published with Dr. Thomas as first author (because he oversaw
the editing & choices for the book & wrote the introduction) -- everyone
pretty much agreed (as Dr Barry agrees) that aluminum dissolved in water
ends up deposited in brain tissue. None address the specific issue of pots
& pans, but they have definitely put to rest the delusion that aluminum
appears spontaneously in the brain -- it enters the bloodstream from the
intestins as a dietary contaminant.

Aluminum sulfate is ADDED to some metropolitan water systems in the
treatment process & that has had Dr. Thomas's priority to stop, even
though he also has said there is not yet any "proof" that the alumnum is
the cause of senile dementia. When a scientist speaks of "unproven" he's
not general implying the opposite IS proven. And Dr Thomas's specific
statement regarding almuminum as the causal agent was "there is not
conclusive evidence. But we fear that it may." All that is definite is if
you eat or drink anything that has aluminum traces therein, it will find
its way to your brain. The rest may be assumption, but then, even gravity
is just a theory, but we seem to adhere to the earth fairly well without
proving it.

Here is the position of Health Canada regarding aluminum cookwa
"Aluminum can also leach into food from cookware,
utensils and wrappings, but studies to date have shown that the
amount of aluminum leached from these sources is generally negligible."

I gave the specifics. 3.5 milligrams per day JUST from the cookware IF you
don't cook anything acidic like tomato sauce or rubarb (then it'll be
more) or if the water you're boiling is flouridated (then the amount of
aluminum dissolved be still more). But under the best of conditions, a
"mere" 3.5 milligrams per day, day in & day out, just from the cheapy-ass
aluminum cookware you're so proud to own. Add another 10 milligrams (or
more) from a buffered asprin if you're one of those dopes who take a pill
a day, another 30 or 40 milligrams from an antacids, it's starting to look
like a healthy dose. If you REALLY want to cite some physicians who don't
think that's a problem you could do MUCH better than Dr Thomas, who has
never said it's not a problem, only that the greater problem is the amount
of aluminum in drinking water.

Though much is not "proven" in absolute scientific terms, the least likely
thing to EVER be proven is that ANY of the sources of aluminum
contaminants are perfectly healthy & play no role whatsoever & that 3.5
milligrams per day is of no earthly consequence. There for a while (up
into the middle 1980s) even the idea of bodily absorption of aluminum from
diet & water was "unmproven" & Science Diget in the late 70s ran a whole
series of articles among which only about one in ten thought it at all
likely. Now pretty much every scientists agrees it's true -- the arguments
are now over which sources play the largest role, or whether it causes
senility or is a natural byproduct of other causes of senility. The Lancet
report on aluminum contaminants in infant diets lowering their average
intelligence as they develop seems to ME damnably definitive that aluminum
is causal, but scientists are rightly chary of claiming to have discovered
absolutes.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/