Bees Developing Dementia Due to Aluminum Exposure

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A new study has found that aluminum may be causing bees to develop dementia and play a role in the insect's population decline.

In the study published on the journal PLOS ONE, scientists found out that bees are heavily exposed to aluminum over the course of their life cycle.

For the study, they took bumblebee pupae from colonies to measure aluminium content. According to study authors Chris Exley of Keele University and Ellen Rotheray and Dave Goulson of Sussex University, the results show that the pupae have high aluminum exposure.

"Aluminium is the most significant environmental contaminant of recent times and we speculated that it could be a factor in pollinator decline," the authors wrote in their research.

When bees collect nectar, they do not avoid flowers laced with aluminum. Researchers found that the metal quantities they gathered for their study was considered enough to cause human brain tissue damage, according to UPI.

Scientists tallied the aluminum counts, ranging from 13 to 200 parts per million, with the highest concentration found in the smallest pupae. To put in context, three parts is enough to be considered toxic for humans.

Aluminum is a chemical element and a known toxicant. It is present in many kinds of products that are used by man in a daily basis. According to CNN, the substance has been linked to deforestation, crop production difficulties and extinction of an entire fish species.

The bee population has been declining since the 1940s—from 5 million to 2.5 million in the present day, according to a report by the US Department of Agriculture.

There are many contributing factors in the decline of the bee population, including: pesticides, lack of pollen, parasites and now this new study has shown aluminum to be a potential contributor as well.

"It is widely accepted that a number of interacting factors are likely to be involved in the decline of bees and other pollinators - lack of flowers, attacks by parasites, and exposure to pesticide cocktails, for example," said lead researcher Professor Chris Exley, from Keele University, reports Daily Mail.

"Aluminium is a known neurotoxin affecting behaviour in animal models of aluminium intoxication. Bees, of course, rely heavily on cognitive function in their everyday behaviour and these data raise the intriguing spectre that aluminium-induced cognitive dysfunction may play a role in their population decline - are we looking at bees with Alzheimer's disease?"

There is no concrete evidence yet that aluminum contributes to Alzheimer's disease in humans. Further investigation and testing are still needed.