
Aluminum in brain tissue in autism - diyseguy
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0946672X17308763
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aylons
Please, read this before upvoting:

[https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/move-over-christopher-
shaw-...](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/move-over-christopher-shaw-theres-
a-new-antivaccine-scientist-in-town/)

~~~
exhilaration
We _should_ upvote both the story and your comment. I've never seen such an
elegant debunking of the suggestion that aluminum causes X disease and it
would be a shame if the rest of HN readers never get to see it because this
submission gets nuked.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
I second that - I'm very grateful for the comment and I'm sorry to see the
submission nuked.

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chrisamiller
The senior author has a long history of bad science on autism and is funded by
an anti-vax group. There's a [complete takedown of this bad science
here](([https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-
exley...](https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-exley-using-
bad-science-to-demonize-aluminum-adjuvants-in-vaccines/))

There is a reason that this is published in the "Journal of Trace Elements in
Medicine and Biology", and not in something more reputable.

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diyseguy
He publishes in journals like this because they are not paywalled like the
better known ones are.

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biocomment
It's unfortunate that the researchers didn't perform the same analysis on
control samples, i.e. brain tissue from similar individuals without an ASD
diagnosis.

They say that the method of measuring aluminium is "established and fully
validated", but this a weak claim. Really, they should have simultaneously
performed the same method on non-ASD brain samples, to eliminate the effect of
any experimental mishaps, and to find the background level of the binding of
the stain to non-aluminium compounds.

With its lack of any control data to compare against, this study sounds like a
waste of valuable brain samples.

~~~
calebm
Isn't this referencing a control group? "Previous measurements of brain
aluminium, including our 60 brain study [13], have allowed us to define loose
categories of brain aluminium content beginning with ≤1.00 μg/g dry wt. as
pathologically benign (as opposed to ‘normal’)."

~~~
biocomment
No, this is referencing a previous study. A control group in this study is
needed to demonstrate that the particular method they used, and the
experimental environment they used it in, can actually show a difference in
aluminium concentrations between ASD and non-ASD samples.

~~~
calebm
Ah, good point.

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fishcolorbrick
> These are some of the highest values for aluminium in human brain tissue yet
> recorded and one has to question why, for example, the aluminium content of
> the occipital lobe of a 15 year old boy would be 8.74 (11.59) μg/g dry wt.?

The phrase, "one has to question" in the abstract jumps out at me as unusual
in science writing.

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ihenriksen
I've read that Aluminum is used in medicine as a catalyst, in toothpast as an
abrasive, its in your dental cement, used as food additives, in your cooking
utensils, used in vaccines as an adjuvant, etc. Some say Aluminum is linked to
Alzheimer's, types of cancer, and now even autism. Could modern life in the
west cause toxic levels of aluminum in our bodies? Sodium-rich water can
supposedly detox your body from aluminum, personally I drink water with a very
high Sodium content, unfortunaltly some of the brands contain a lot of
fluoride - you just can't win :) ...

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vorotato
Most westerners don't get cancer, and most westerners don't get Alzheimers,
yet most westerners consume all the things you mentioned. Perhaps the problem
isn't as simple as consuming the right things.

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pmalynin
The standard deviations in these numbers include the null hypothesis....

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elchief
I remember my (hippie) mother telling me this as a child. Of course, she also
thought it was bad to drink water when eating...

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
That's kinda a problem with a lot of the so-called traditional wisdom. There
are accidental or intentional nuggets in there but they're mixed up with so
much crap that you can't separate the wheat from the chaff.

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selimthegrim
[https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-
exley...](https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-exley-using-
bad-science-to-demonize-aluminum-adjuvants-in-vaccines/)

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esaym
So aluminum was found? So what is the problem with this being "bad science"?

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
No control group, wildly high variance. The data is ridiculously noisy, and
the results aren't statistically significant. The normal range for aluminium
concentration falls within the margin of error for the measurements of the
study.

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vorotato
You heard it here folks, Autism makes you chew aluminum foil.

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cheeseprocedure
I’m a layperson, but these sample sizes seem small. Is this a legitimate
concern?

