You've Got Lead on the Brain Earlier this month we learned that
exposing monkeys—a close relative of ours—to lead ups their risk
of developing Alzheimer's disease later on. The NewScientist was
on it: Monkeys exposed to the heavy metal during infancy may be
predisposed to develop the equivalent of Alzheimer's
disease.Maybe there’s some proof in this pudding, because new
research has linked lead to aging in older brains. Malcolm
Ritter of the Associated Press is on it: "We're not saying that
lead exposure causes Alzheimer's disease, but it's a risk
factor," says Nasser Zawia of the University of Rhode Island in
Kingston, whose team discovered the link. Zawia's team fed baby
monkeys infant formula milk laced with low levels of lead, then
followed their progress until the age of 23. While the adult
monkeys did not show symptoms of Alzheimer's per se, post-mortem
analyses of their brains showed that the lead-fed monkeys had
plaques and other abnormalities identical to those found in the
brains of people with Alzh