The epidemiology of Alzheimer's disease in relation to aluminium.

The combination of an ageing population, an exponential increase in the incidence of dementing illness with age, and the high demands that demented patients place on health care resources makes Alzheimer's disease a major public health issue. So far, epidemiologists have made better progress in quantifying the frequency of the disease than in identifying strong risk factors, but evidence is accumulating to implicate environmental exposure to aluminium in the aetiology. The finding of a geographical correlation between death rates from dementia and water aluminium concentrations in Norway has since been replicated in several other surveys. Although ecological studies of this type should be interpreted cautiously, the association between Alzheimer's disease and aluminium in drinking water may prove to be an example of a potentially important biological effect of aluminium.