Too Much Aluminum in Infant Formulas

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100901111444.htm

ScienceDaily (Sep. 2, 2010) — The aluminum content of a range of the most popular brands of infant formulas remains high, and particularly so for a product designed for preterm infants and a soya-based product designed for infants with cow's milk intolerances and allergies, researchers have found.

A study by a team at Keele University in Staffordshire, led by Dr Chris Exley with Shelle-Ann M Burrell, demonstrating the vulnerability of infants to early exposure to aluminum serves to highlight an urgent need to reduce the aluminum content of infant formulas to as-low-a-level as is practically possible. The research has been published in the journal BMC Pediatrics.

Infant formulas are integral to the nutritional requirements of preterm and term infants. While it has been known for decades that infant formulas are contaminated with significant amounts of aluminum there is little evidence that manufacturers consider this to be a health issue. Aluminum is non-essential and is linked to human disease. There is evidence of both immediate and delayed toxicity in infants, and especially preterm infants, exposed to aluminum and the team contends that there is still too much aluminum in infant formulas.

There has been a long and significant history documenting the contamination of infant formulas by aluminum and consequent health effects in children. Through these and other publications manufacturers of infant formulas have been made fully aware of the potentially compounded issue of both the contamination by aluminum and the heightened vulnerability, from the point of view of a newborn's developing physiology, of infants fed such formulas.

There have been similar warnings over several decades in relation to aluminum toxicity and parenteral nutrition of preterm and term infants. To these ends the expectation would be that the aluminum content of current infant formulas would at the very least be historically low and at best would be as low as might be achieved for a processed product. The team tested this premise and found that the aluminum content of a range of branded infant formulas remains too high.


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