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Posted Thu Jun 23 2011: from Discover:
Are Toxins in Seafood Causing ALS, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's? http://apocadocs.com/s.pl?1308850872
The cause of ALS is unknown. Though of little solace to the afflicted, Stommel used to offer one comforting fact: ALS was rare, randomly striking just two of 100,000 people a year. Then, a couple of years ago, in an effort to gain more insight into the disease, Stommel enlisted students to punch the street addresses of about 200 of his ALS patients into Google Earth. The distribution of cases that emerged on the computer-generated map of New England shocked him. In numbers far higher than national statistics predicted, his current and deceased patients' homes were clustered around lakes and other bodies of water.... "I started thinking maybe there was something in the water," Stommel says. That "something," he now suspects, could be the environmental toxin beta-methylamino-L-alanine, or BMAA. This compound 
is produced by cyanobacteria, the blue-green algae that live in soil, lakes, and oceans. Cyanobacteria are consumed by fish and other aquatic creatures. Recent studies have found BMAA in seafood, suggesting that certain diets and locations may put people at particular risk. More worrisome, blooms of cyanobacteria are becoming increasingly common, fueling fears that their toxic by-product may be quietly fomenting an upsurge in ALS--and possibly other neurological disorders like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's as well.
[Read more stories about: toxic buildup, algal bloom, health impacts]

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'Doc Michael says:
We can start calling them "TFC" illnesses: Top of the Food Chain.

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More stories:
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  • (Are Toxins in Seafood Causing ALS, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's?)
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