CEPHALOCONIOSIS - A FREE-RADICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE PROPOSED PARTICULATE-INDUCED ETIOPATHOGENESIS OF ALZHEIMERS DEMENTIA AND RELATED DISORDERS

By analogy to the etiology of the pneumoconioses, exogenous dust-induced diseases of the lung, and endogenous crystal-induced arthropathies such as gout, it is proposed that Alzheimer's dementia and allied disorders are causally related to the accumulation of fibriform inorganic deposits within the brain. Hence the neonosological term 'Cephaloconiosis'. It is proposed that: 1) either by the extrinsic migration or intrinsic formation and deposition of insoluble and persistent inorganic reactive nidi, the particle-induced generation of tissue-damaging free-radical oxygen metabolites by stimulated brain glial macrophage-type and allied phagocytic cells, provides a rationale for the etiopathogenesis of neurodegenerative processes; 2) the modulation of the injurious oxidative metabolic reaction by micronutrient and pharmacological antioxidant agents is a rational and potentially feasible strategy for future therapeutic clinical investigations.