this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
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We have saturated our environment with aluminum to the point where one of our "background ailments" is light metal poisoning from aluminum - most notably as a decline in intelligence. We keep 'choosing' the cheapest easiest solution to liquids packaging and distribution - and each one of them - EXCEPT GLASS - has come back to bite us on the ass.
Do you have any sources for this fairly common naturally occurring ~~biologically important~~, and in human uses bioinert metal causing "light metal poisoning" from either natural background doses or incidental from human pollution?
I don't want acute poisoning, specifically sources on chronic background doses.
Since when is aluminium biologically important? I'm under the impression that humans (and other life?) do not need aluminium at all.
Having said that, my info is that it's nothing to worry about. It is very common in food (naturally and since forever), and the body can get rid of it, and they haven't been able to show adverse effects except in very very high doses. That's the messaging I've been seeing anyway.
You're in fact right, I was hedging a bet that the abundance of aluminum meant it'd be used by some random metabolic processes somewhere, which it probably is, but still none found.
This sounds like one of those Facebook facts....
As others have said, source?
Someone needs to invent amorphous silicon with weak bonds and call it βglassticβ
Aluminum is the fifth most common element on Earth, and is naturally present in pretty large quantities in soil.
Are you sure you aren't confusing it with lead?
No. Lead is another though. Aluminum isn't common at all because it's locked up in bauxite, which must be refined in order to 'release' the aluminum content.
The world has done an excellent job of releasing aluminum from it's 'prison', and now aluminum is "loose" and causing problems with human cognitive abilities. (actually, all animals - but it's hard to notice a decline in mental ability in animals).
Light metal's poisoning, radioactive fallout from over 5,000 nuclear explosions, lead, CO2, decline in O2 atmospheric content... we've caused ourselves to start devolving.