In summary you don't need to worry about aluminium unless you have renal failure and are on dialysis.
So, you do need to worry about it, at some point...maybe it'd be a good idea to worry about toxicity before one has renal failure...it doesn't all of a sudden bite you after you've crossed over some magical threshold.
The point that's missed in the above discussion is people typically aren't toxic with just one thing, we all carry a unique toxic burden developed over time from our unique environmental experiences, and our ability to mobilize and excrete these substances varies due to genetic expression, the load of competing toxins and other environmental factors, and the availability of cofactors to support these processes.
The problem with large studies and population wide advice is that they're boiled down to what the generic person's experience should be.
Some of us, likely many of us on this site, are canaries in the coal mine, with inefficient detoxification and therefore higher loads of toxins.
The other thing to note when looking at these studies is how toxins were measured. Many are there causing symptoms and disease, but aren't picked up because they're sequestered deep in tissues in mitochondria and won't show up on a blood test for acute exposure.
My own experience was with using DMSA and DMPS to get rid of mercury over a 4 year period, the EDTA to remove platinum over a 9 month period.
One would think I'd be clean by that point....however, my symptoms led us to believe had further toxicity and provoked urine tests showed a some aluminum and lead. I started taking PolyMVA, an alpha lipoic acid polymer, and immediately had acute toxicity symptoms.
Arsenic, which I'd been tested for multiple times and came up clean, showed up in abundance. I had classic symptoms of aarsenic toxicity and my blood measured at acute levels according to CDC guidelines.
The alpha lipoic acid polymer had been created to pull metals out of mitochondrial membranes. It does, based on my experience and lab results. Arsenic can impair ATP production in mitochondria (as can other toxins).
After the arsenic came out, my blood pressure shot up, a symptom of lead toxicity, and I tested positive for acute lead exposure. As the lead load moved through, my blood pressure moved down.
I'm still taking the PolyMVA, and am feeling energized from it these days, and I'm probably getting some of the lesser toxins out. I'll have to do another test one of these days and see if I still have aluminum, but as my kidney function has improved mightily (GFR went down to 50 to back up to 95 after detoxing), I'm not too worried.
Lessons learned are:
- Most of us have no idea of how toxic we are...toxins are sequestered deep in our bodies and will not show up on blood tests
- Toxins are related to many diseases and can interfere with mitochondrial function
- Heavy metals have different characteristics, create different symptoms, and will come out of our bodies at different speeds (and more in sequence than in parallel)
- Different people have widely varying amounts of various toxins which will affect them differently
- It is possible to remove toxins, not by charlatans, but by using the principles of biochemistry in a thoughtful, rational manner. Governments have spent significant resources on figuring out how to detoxify people. There are published methods that work.
Aluminum may not be a huge problem for everyone but for some, it likely has an impact.