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Is There a Relationship Between Dental Amalgam and Alzheimer Disease?

Principal Investigators: C. Sadaghiani, PhD; H. Walach, PhD

Affiliations: University Hospital Freiburg, Department of Environmental Medicine and Hospital Epidemiology, Germany; Stiftung Verum

Background: There is considerable scientific evidence that mercury is the metal causing the most widespread adverse health effects to the public. For most people, amalgam fillings have been well documented to be the number one source of exposure of mercury. Dental amalgam contains about 50% mercury. The average filling has one gram of mercury and leaks mercury vapor resulting in significant exposure. Mercury vapor is transmitted rapidly throughout the body, easily crosses cell membranes, and like organic methyl mercury has significant toxic effects. These include that it is cytotoxic (kills cells), penetrates and damages the blood brain barrier, resulting in accumulation of mercury and other toxic substances in the brain, is neurotoxic (kills brain and nerve cells), generates high levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxidative stress, kills or inhibits production of brain tubulin cells, is nephrotoxic, and it accumulates in the pituitary gland and other organs. As there are higher concentrations of mercury in the autopsied brains of patients who died of Alzheimer disease than of those who died from other causes, there could be a relationship between dental amalgam fillings and Alzheimer disease.

Method: 1. Systematic review of the literature; 2. Case control study with the aim to correlate dental status of Alzheimer disease patients with levels of mercury concentrations in tissue, blood and urine.