Melrose resident dives into Alzheimer’s research to help his mother
For four years, Crouse pored over thousands of pages of scientific literature. He took courses in dementia and neuro-chemistry. Over time, a promising theory emerged.
By Jeannette Hinkle
jhinkle@wickedlocal.com
In 2012, Beulah Crouse’s memory began to fade.
The 86-year-old resident of Marion, Iowa had been a seamstress and an accountant during her working years, but she started forgetting how to load the sewing machine, how to balance her own checkbook. Beulah started getting panic attacks, and at night, she had trouble holding a conversation with her son, Dennis Crouse.
“We knew she was on her way, and Alzheimer’s is one of those diseases that is a steady downhill plod in terms of your mental health – it just gets worse and worse,” said Crouse, who lives in Melrose with his wife Laurie Adamson.
Crouse decided he could help.
He holds an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Harvard, and went on to earn his doctorate in chemistry from Harvard after developing an anti-tumor alkaloid currently being used to treat colon cancer. Later, he developed strategies and instruments to detect environmental contaminants and measure corrosion.
“When I retired in 2011, I put all that aside until my mother called up,” Crouse said. “I decided that I have the wherewithal to potentially figure out what causes Alzheimer’s and if I can figure out what causes it, I could potentially think of some solutions as a chemist and maybe help my mother. I couldn’t stand by and do nothing.”
Finding the problem, solving the problem
For four years, Crouse pored over thousands of pages of scientific literature. He took courses in dementia and neuro-chemistry. Over time, a promising theory emerged.
“Aluminum in our food, in our water, in some of the air that we breathe is indeed a causative factor of Alzheimer’s,” Crouse said. “I was totally shocked. I went in thinking, like a lot of people, that Alzheimer’s is mostly a genetic thing.”
Building on English and French studies, Crouse determined a few easy strategies he contends can slow and even reverse the progression of Alzheimer’s caused by environmental exposure to aluminum.
The first is available at most gas stations.
Though it’s more expensive than other brands of bottled water, Crouse said Fiji water is the most affordable way to get silica, which according to his research, draws aluminum out of the brain through chelation. Crouse said those up for a little chemistry can make silica-rich water at home, for the cost of about a nickel a gallon. For Beulah, Crouse said, the drink made a difference.
“We put my mother on Fiji water and in four months, my dad saw significant improvement in her performance and she was having more good days than bad,” Crouse said.
Crouse first noticed the positive change during an evening conversation with Beulah, who had special difficulty with her cognition after the sun went down – a typical symptom of Alzheimer’s.
“She had a long story to tell me and she told it,” Crouse said. “As a son, it’s good to know you took part in making it happen and didn’t just sit back and wait for her to drift off.”
Along the way, Crouse found other strategies he argues cuts down on aluminum build-up in the brain. Aerobic exercise, vitamin D and eliminating sources of aluminum in one’s daily environment all lead to lowered levels of aluminum, he said.
Beulah has no trouble drinking Fiji water, Crouse said, but efforts motivate her to exercise aerobically and eliminate all aluminum intake have met some friction. For most of her life, Beulah made tomato juice in a large aluminum pan, which she still considers to be “a useful pan.”
“After 30 or 40 years, there is this black corroded line around the pan,” Crouse said. “She’s been making neuro-toxic tomato juice all these years and drinking it down every morning with breakfast. I went home and wrote on all the sides of the pan with magic marker, ‘Do not use this for cooking – Skip.’ Skip is my nickname.”
But Beulah has been taking most of her son’s advice. For her 90th birthday this past fall, the family shared an aluminum-free cake made with natural dyes and cream of tartar baking powder – the only baking powder Crouse said doesn’t contain aluminum.
“It was beautiful,” Crouse said. “It was vanilla. She wanted vanilla.”
Spreading the word
When his mother’s health started to improve, Crouse thought he’d done his work. But Adamson, who had watched Crouse dig through medical journals and search the internet for years, wanted others to benefit from his findings – partly because he found aluminum might also impact autism.
Crouse wrote a book, titled “Prevent Alzheimer’s, Autism and Stroke: With 7-Supplements, 7-Lifestyle Choices, and a Dissolved Mineral,” which he published this fall. Now, the couple is working to further publicize Crouse’s research.
They created a video that will air on MMTV, they’ve reached out to congressmen and senators and made sure Crouse’s book is easily searchable online. Still, the findings are controversial, and the role of aluminum in Alzheimer’s is a topic of debate in the medical community. The Alzheimer’s Association lists aluminum exposure as one of eight myths about the disease on its website.
“During the 1960s and 1970s, aluminum emerged as a possible suspect in Alzheimer’s. Since then, studies have failed to confirm any role for aluminum in causing Alzheimer’s,” the site reads. “Experts today focus on other areas of research, and few believe that everyday sources of aluminum pose any threat.”
Even so, Crouse and Adamson believe in the research and the couple’s personal experiences have motivated them to share his findings with others.
“We’re retired,” Adamson said, “and we certainly don’t want to make this a full-time job for ourselves, but at the same time we’re passionate about getting this information out.”
Crouse said his research provides agency to individuals as federal budgets for the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute of Health are cut, reducing their ability to regulate and study environmental toxins.
“Transforming frustration to hope, my book proposes inexpensive ways that an individual can control their own mental fitness, lower aluminum accumulation, and avoid these diseases in their brain without medical insurance or prescription pharmaceuticals,” Crouse said. “These recommendations, if followed, will empower us to save ourselves and our children from these diseases that have currently reached epidemic proportions.”
The couple’s two-part video on MMTV goes deeper into explaining Crouse’s findings. The first is titled “Brain Fitness in the Aluminum Age – Preventing Alzheimer’s.” The second is titled “Brain Fitness in the Aluminum Age – Eliminating Aluminum Intake.” The videos will be uploaded to YouTube after airing on MMTV.
