2023-11-18 04:45:24
In a surprising discovery, researchers have identified a chronic neurotoxin known as BMAA in dust particles from the dry bed of an ancient lake. This toxin, linked to neurodegenerative diseases, has become a major health problem due to its presence in wind-blown dust that reaches highly populated metropolitan areas.
The discovery was made by James S. Metcalf, Sandra Anne Banack and Paul Alan Cox, from Brain Chemistry Labs, in Jackson, Wyoming, United States.
The dust comes from the dry bed of the Great Salt Lake, is rich in heavy metals and has now been proven to be also rich in cyanobacteria and their toxins. This dust poses a disturbing risk to human health. Several studies indicated that chronic dietary exposure to the neurotoxin BMAA can trigger amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)-type neuropathology. This neurotoxin is now considered the most important environmental risk factor for developing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Although exposure to the neurotoxin BMAA also causes, in laboratory animals, neuropathology of the same type as that caused by Alzheimer’s disease, its role in this condition, as well as in Parkinson’s disease, is not completely known. However, its connection to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has been corroborated by two recent epidemiological studies, marking it as the strongest environmental link to the disease so far. In particular, an increased risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was observed in residents living near cyanobacteria-infested rivers and lakes, underscoring the potential danger of BMAA exposure.
Brain Chemistry Labs has been monitoring the presence and distribution of BMAA and other cyanobacterial toxins in bodies of water such as Lake Okeechobee. International research groups from Sweden, China and France are also investigating chronic exposure to BMAA as a risk factor for developing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
James Metcalf taking air samples in the Great Salt Lake to analyze cyanobacterial toxins. (Photo: Paul Alan Cox)
Although ninety percent of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis cases are sporadic and ten percent familial, the threat posed by inhalation of BMAA-contaminated dust remains unclear. What is clear, however, is the urgent need for comprehensive studies to determine the potential increased risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis from exposure to Great Salt Lake dust.
It is possible that in other parts of the world there are other sources of dust with the harmful effects of dust now studied.
The study is titled “Cyanotoxin Analysis of Air Samples from the Great Salt Lake.” And it has been published in the academic journal Toxins. (Source: NCYT from Amazings)
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