Comment by wen_1k_btc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wen_1k_btc | Hacker News Reader

No thanks, no aluminum in my drinking water.

Epidemiological studies suggest that aluminium may not be as innocuous as was previously thought and that aluminium may actively promote the onset and progression of Alzheimer's disease. This condition is the most common form of dementia and may contribute to 60 –70 % of cases. In 2015, dementia affected 47 million people worldwide (or roughly 5% of the world's elderly population), a figure predicted to increase to 75 million in 2030 and 132 million by 2050. Recent reviews estimate that each year nearly 9.9 million people develop dementia globally; this figure translates into one new case every three seconds (5). Even prolonged exposure to low levels of aluminium leads to changes associated with brain ageing and neurodegeneration (6).

Furthermore, aluminium has been included among 200 neurotoxic chemicals that silently erode intelligence, disrupt behaviours, truncate future achievements, and damage societies, perhaps most seriously in developing countries. The latter is called the "Silent Pandemic of Neurodevelopmental Toxicity in Children" (7,8). Recently, the aluminium content of brain tissue in autism spectrum disorder was found to be consistently high (9), and the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder is increasing, last CDC estimated prevalence is 1 in 44 children (10).

5) World Health Organization. Global action plan on the public health response to dementia. 2017-2025.

6) Bondy SC. Prolonged exposure to low levels of aluminium leads to changes associated with brain ageing and neurodegeneration. Toxicology 315 (2014) 1-7.

7) Grandjean P, Landrigan PJ. Developmental neurotoxicity of industrial chemicals. Lancet. 2006 Dec 16;368(9553):2167-78.

8) Grandjean P, Landrigan PJ. Neurobehavioural effects of developmental toxicity. The Lancet Neurology, Volume 13, Issue 3, Pages 330 - 338, March 2014.

9) Mold M, et al. aluminium in brain tissue in autism. J Trace Elem Med Biol. 2018.

10) CDC. National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. 31 March 2022. Accessed 8 April 2022.

According to the Alzheimer society, "Current research provides no convincing evidence that exposure to trace elements of aluminum is connected to the development of dementia." [1]

Because Aluminium is extremely common in the earth, it's also impossible to avoid ingesting it.

Further info at [1]: https://alzheimer.ca/en/about-dementia/how-can-i-prevent-dem...

Then maybe it's not aluminum which is the problem, but some natural detoxification process in the body which is being inhibited.

I'm not arguing for or against this, but I'd be really hesitant to quote any organization that has large ties to the Alzeimers research industry which is famously hostile to any research that doesn't subscribe to the amyloid hypothesis. I wouldn't be surprised if the argument against certain contributing factors, like heavy aluminum exposure, were based on lack of connection to amyloid plaque. STAT News did a wonderful write-up on the tragic state of Alzeimer's research back in 2019

https://www.statnews.com/2019/06/25/alzheimers-cabal-thwarte...

> The scientists described the frustrating, even career-ending, obstacles that they confronted in pursuing their research. A top journal told one that it would not publish her paper because others hadn’t. Another got whispered advice to at least pretend that the research for which she was seeking funding was related to the leading idea — that a protein fragment called beta-amyloid accumulates in the brain, creating neuron-killing clumps that are both the cause of Alzheimer’s and the key to treating it. Others could not get speaking slots at important meetings, a key showcase for research results. Several who tried to start companies to develop Alzheimer’s cures were told again and again by venture capital firms and major biopharma companies that they would back only an amyloid approach.

> “I don’t think there was a purposeful attempt to scuttle other approaches,” Selkoe added. Or as Aisen put it last week on the sidelines of the Aspen Ideas Festival, “I don’t think I’m part of a cabal.”

> It isn’t hard to understand why hundreds of academics lined up behind the amyloid model over the years, Fitzpatrick said. “Once a field commits to a particular hypothesis, the research resources — funding, experimental models, and training — all get in line,” she wrote in a 2018 analysis. That brings backers of the dominant idea accolades, awards, lucrative consulting deals, and well-paid academic appointments. Admitting doubt, let alone error, would be not only be a blow to the ego but also a threat to livelihood.

And rice produced in North America tends to concentrate arsenic.

Because something is difficult doesn't mean it's okay to rationalize more of it. Marketing something as "nontoxic" has a storied history of failure. DDT for one.

Cost/benefit analysis always. Perhaps in a survival or humanitarian crisis situation the risks of water-borne diseases would be far greater.

Note that it is Aluminum Oxide not elemental aluminum. Aluminum Oxide is not very reactive, and completely insoluble in water. if you were concerned about it, pass your treated water through a coffee filter after removing the powder magnetically. I'd be much more concerned about what this process can't remove from water though, things like heavy metals or other chemical contaminants.

Is aluminum magnetic? Didn’t think so?

No, that is why it might still there to remove with a coffee filter, after removing the powder magnetically, I assume.

> The powder consists of nano-size flakes of aluminum oxide, molybdenum sulfide, copper, and iron oxide

Aluminum oxide is not magnetic, but the iron oxide (presumably bonded to the other ingredients) is magnetic.

The original paper specifies in the abstraction:

> discrete nanoflakes of (Al2O3@v-MoS2)/Cu/Fe3O4

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-023-00079-4

Metallic aluminium is insanely reactive and any Aluminium exposure will always be in the form of oxides or hydroxides. It's disingenuous to suggest that it is inert in this form, especially given that the point of the exercise is active, complex, catalysed photochemistry.

Not a chemist but a MechE. How is aluminum insanely reactive? Aluminum oxide is significantly less prevalent than iron oxide (aka rust). Even on a sheet metal part, you might get a couple microns worth of aluminum oxide. Hell, we purposely anodize it so we get more aluminum oxide.

Aluminum is extremely reactive. It self-passivates with Aluminum oxide very quickly. The difference between rust and AlO3 is that the AlO3 adheres well to the base metal and doesn't flake off like rust does.

You anodize it to get more because the raw material is so reactive that it forms a thin layer of oxide more or less instantly. That keeps more oxygen out, but it’s too thin and can be easily scratched.

If the alternative is giardia, I'll take the aluminum.

Yet you probably use toothpaste containing sodium fluoride or drink tap water with sodium fluoride and think nothing of it. That’s probably worse for you. That’s why a lot of places stopped adding fluoride from drinking water and why you spit tooth paste out and don’t give children fluoride tooth paste until they learn to spit.

While calcium fluoride is safe when consumed.

Adding pinch of potassium Permanganate is a good way to purify water on a camping trip. Also carry a little glycerin with you. Fun fire starting trick is to fill a bottle cap with permanganate and pour a little glycerin on top - wait one minute and presto: fire.

The aluminum is bound with the iron and other elements, so that the magnet can retrieve it all from the water?

Not any kind of chemist, but I'm seeing molybdenum disulfide plus (metal) coated on alumina support used as a catalyst, as well as magnetic Al/Fe composite nanoparticles used for same. Usually the metal is something more punk rock, like platinum, cobalt, or ruthenium, but copper is an obvious choice on the poisonous/cheap axis

And this can be tested. Do a huge number of cycles of water treatment. Maybe 1000 or something.

Measure the amount of aluminum in the powder before and after. And/or measure the amount of aluminum added to the water too.

You're going to have to do some testing similar to this anyway since you need to know how long the stuff stays effective. At some point it could wear out and lose its germ-killing powers. Or maybe it doesn't, but you need to know that.

Your source 6 says we are all already drinking aluminum in the drinking water so not much to be done.

I'm sort of confused: you could have said the same thing about lead 70 years ago.

I guess your point is that we had better prove with absolute certainty that this is a problem before we try to do something about it, since it would be a bit expensive to rework the entire world's plumbing and pointless to target anything short of that.

I think the point is that this is just status quo. Drinking water with aluminum is already the norm, so why refuse this particular form?

You'd need to rework more than the worlds plumbing considering thats not even whats tainting things. The source says its often from runoff, from rain dissolving naturally occurring aluminum precipitated all over the earths crust and bringing it into the water supply. The only solution to that would be to distill all water. Imagine those energy costs.

My point is basically we are doomed for this, c'est la vie, live your life, probably something else will be taking you out at the end of the day anyhow.

idk

"In the Earth's crust, aluminium is the most abundant metallic element (8.23% by mass)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Earth

Alumium oxide only. It does not exist in pure form.

quote from the article:

"The powder consists of nano-size flakes of aluminum oxide, molybdenum sulfide, copper, and iron oxide."

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