The Truth About The Relationship Between Aluminum Cans And Alzheimer's

Retail beverages have been available in glass bottles since the 19th century, according to the University of Wisconsin's Wisconsin 101. Aluminum cans did not enter the retail beverage picture until 1959 when the Coors Brewing Company introduced the first beer to come in an "all-aluminum, seamless, two-piece beverage container" (via The Aluminum Association). Despite their late start, aluminum cans quickly caught on, so much so that, between 1964 and 1965, one million cans of soda had already been packaged using said material. Ever since, there has been continuing debate over which is better: bottles or cans. 

Up until now, the answer has depended largely on what your priorities happen to be. For example, if you are someone who thinks of the environment before grabbing a icy, cold beverage, you might prefer cans, which have less of a carbon footprint than bottles (via Reuters), whereas if you are a beer drinker, you may or may not prefer the "taste" of bottled brew (via Brewer World). Going forward, however, whatever your priorities may have been, you might start looking at things differently based on recent research published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease Reports, which takes science one step closer to understanding the truth about the relationship between aluminum cans and Alzheimer's. 

People have long associated aluminum and Alzheimer's disease (via the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease Reports). Scientists out of Keele University (U.K.) wanted to learn more about the truth behind that association, so they examined the brains of three deceased middle-aged adults, each of whom had tested positive for a genetic mutation associated with Alzheimer's, but none of whom had been diagnosed at the time of their death. Scientists found that aluminum was observable in the same places in the brain where the first signs of Alzheimer's disease are observed using diagnostic imagining. 

That being said, the fact that aluminum was found "at the scene" of damage to the brain does not prove that aluminum caused, or is capable of causing, such damage. Moreover, fans of canned beverages should be aware that nothing in the research came even anywhere near to suggesting where the aluminum observed in the subject brains might have come from. It could just as easily have come from breathing in polluted air as it could have come from drinking canned beverages. While the research has these and other significant limitations (including its size), it does, nevertheless, stand for the possibility that aluminum to which we are exposed can end up in our brains in precisely the places where Alzheimer's may first develop.