New research reported by pioneering dentist Hal A. Huggins, DDS, suggests that once even minute amounts of mercury enter the brain, they can seriously damage nerve cells and produce the physical and structural damage of brain tissue now linked to Alzheimer's. The biochemistry is complex, but mercury damages a key enzyme needed for the brain's energy processes called creatine kinase. Autopsies show that the brain of a healthy person contains 2.300% more creatine kinase than the brain of a person with Alzheimer's, according to Dr. Huggins.

The brain needs creatine kinase to make ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which is central to all energy processes in the body. Autopsies also show that a brain impaired by Alzheimer's has reduced ATP levels compared to healthy subjects. ATP, in turn, is needed for the production of tubulin, a protein that gives nerve cells their shape and physical integrity, a kind of molecular scaffolding system. Think of the tubulin structure as a ladder, says Dr. Huggins. In the brain of an Alzheimer's patient, the rungs of the ladder have come undone and the center portion has collapsed into coils. These are the neurofibrillary tangles, as revealed by brain autopsies. "When tubulin, the microstructure of nerve cells, collapses, you have Alzheimer's. The amount of reduction of tubulin activity is directly related to the degree of Alzheimer's," Dr. Huggins says. "No other type of neural degeneration or any other autoimmune disease of the nervous system shows a reduction in tubulin activity."