Mercury and lead are not the only heavy metals that justify regular DETOX purges to clear and eliminate them.
Aluminium is another one.
Anti-perspirants Deodorants
Anti-perspirant deodorants are in vogue, supposedly to prevent the formation of unsightly underarm halos and the odours that accompany them by preventing the sweating process.
By what process? By means of a substance that clogs the sweat glands: aluminium.Now aluminium is rightly in the dock.It was Dr Darbre who alerted us.
In September 2005, this researcher from the University of Reading, in the United Kingdom, pointed the finger at the aluminium contained in antiperspirant deodorants which she suspected of promoting breast cancer.She showed that aluminium chlorohydrate has oestrogenic activity that can increase the risk of breast cancer in women.
In the same perspective, Dr Kris McGrath of Northwestern University in Chicago studied the cosmetic habits of 437 women with breast cancer and found that these women used antiperspirant deodorant containing aluminium salts, as shaving the armpits (in women) facilitates the absorption of aluminium because it weakens the skin barrier.
A 43 year old woman recently treated at Poitiers hospital complaining of immense fatigue. Diagnosis: hyperaluminemia, excess aluminium in the body.She was using a deodorant containing aluminium chlorhydrate. The doctors asked her to stop using her deodorant.
Within three months, the fatigue gradually subsided and then disappeared.At the same time, her blood aluminium level dropped.There was no doubt that the deodorant alone was responsible for the hyperaluminaemia.
In the brain...
Aluminium is omnipresent in our daily lives and it is in the brain that it is concentrated in the greatest quantities.Neurons subjected to an excess of aluminium experience a decrease in acetyl-cholinesterase enzyme activity and a significant decrease in ribonucleic acid.
By accumulating in the cortex and hippocampus, aluminium is said to induce the progressive necrosis of astrocytes in the central nervous system.These areas govern memory processes and brain ageing is accentuated by the accumulation of aluminium.
In Alzheimer's disease, which is a degenerative dementia, the neurons of affected patients are found to contain a much higher concentration of aluminium than normal.
A ministerial note of October 1998 is explicit: "A whole range of experimental data argues in favour of an intervention of aluminium in the development of the cerebral lesions characteristic of degenerative diseases of the nervous system of the Alzheimer's type, even if the specific importance of this factor in relation to genetic, nutritional or immunological factors, or its possible synergistic action is not known."
Too high a concentration of aluminium is thought to be involved in these disorders:
- Alzheimer's disease
- Parkinson's disease
- Multiple sclerosis
- Cancer
- Myopathies
- Encéphalites
- Epilepsy
- Anemia
- General fatigue
Agricultural drift
The drifts of the food industry make aluminium present in many foods and increase the level of aluminium in the blood.
It is found in:
- desserts,
- sodas,
- candied fruit,
- dairy products,
- Egg white preparations,
- Cereal products,
- white table salt,
- bleaching agents for treating flour,
- processed cheeses,
- Soup bags,
- pastries,
Food additives containing aluminium salts are:E173, E520, E521, E522, E523, E541, E554, E555, E556, E559
Contamination of food by contact
There is also contamination of food by contact.Aluminium can get into food from aluminium pots and pans, kitchen utensils and packaging, e.g.household rolls of aluminium foil to protect food in the refrigerator or trays of the same metal for oven dishes.
During storage in moist heat, aluminium foil wrapped around food tends to degrade and release alumina oxides.
On the other hand, cooking fish in foil with the addition of lemon releases a large amount of aluminium citrate through the combined effect of heat and citric acid.
Studies correlate the diffusion of aluminium in food during cooking with diseases of the digestive tract.
And this is all the more true since the acidity of the environment increases the solubility of aluminium, which then passes more easily through the intestinal barrier into the blood plasma.Unpainted or badly painted cans present the same risks.
The harmful effects of antacids
Another harm: to alleviate the pain caused by gastric acidity, the medicines intended to neutralise it (the family of antacids or gastric dressings) use aluminium salts, often aluminium hydroxide.An acid pH and an inflamed stomach mucosa make it easier for the body to absorb aluminium.
Some antacids even contain a very high dose.The aluminium is then found in high levels in the brain.
The WHO estimates that the aluminium intake of regular antacid users could be as high as 5 g/day, a figure that is reached all the more quickly as most gastric dressings are sold over the counter and are not subject to any medical monitoring.
If the users of gastric dressings are therefore concerned, so are their descendants, since aluminium would intoxicate the foetus despite the placental barrier, according to the laboratory of toxicology and applied hygiene of the Faculty of Pharmacy in Bordeaux.
Aluminium causes significant damage: as proof, the case of a child who, before her death at the age of 9, suffered serious mental retardation (her brain weighed only 650 g).Her mother had condemned her by consuming massive amounts of antacid tablets during her pregnancy.
In another section of this site, we deal at length with the controversial problem of the incorporation of aluminium in vaccines.
All in all, aluminium pollution of the body is a major reason for regular DETOX.
