Abstract
A great deal of information exists concerning the analysis of mineral elements in man's diet and health, some performed using the most rudimentary of methods and producing results which are now known to have been inaccurate. The experimental work reported here was carried out using Inductively Coupled Plasma - Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS), one of the most up to date methods of elemental analysis. A general introduction to the area of biological mineral research is made in chapter one, together with some detail on the importance of the geochemical environment as a determinant of minerals available in the diet. Chapter two reviews the problems inherent to elemental analysis and outlines the practical use of ICP-MS for such a task. The results of a short study comparing ICP-MS to the more established technique of atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) are also included in this chapter. A new wet-oxidation method for dissolving liquid milk samples was developed in order to determine the levels of seventeen elements in milk samples from eleven regions of England and Scotland at monthly intervals. This study, reported in chapter three, shows that pasteurised milk is by no means an homogeneous product in terms of its elemental composition. Alzheimer's Disease, a distressing form of presenile dementia, is considered is chapter four. It has been suggested that the condition is linked to possible toxicity from aluminium in the environment. To investigate the possibility of a general mineral imbalance existing in victims of the disease, levels of some twenty elements in a range of body fluids and brain tissue from post-mortem samples of such cases have been determined and compared to the levels in similar specimens from a control group.