Aluminium boiler bad for health?

[Sunnyfield]

The person in the shop I bought my VBM from in Amsterdam claims that aluminium boilers are bad for your health. Apparently water and aluminium are each others arch-enemies. Water will cause corrosion and as a result you will drink aluminium with your espresso. And the machine is likely to break down after a couple of years because of the corrosion. That is one of the main reasons he doesn't sell Krups, DeLonghi, Gaggia etceteras. He only sells brands with copper boilers, with his all-time favourite being the VBM Domobar.

Can anyone confirm that aluminium and water do not like each other?

And is aluminium-oxide bad for your health?

[Joey]

(Aluminium boilers? I thought they are made of a steel/chopper alloy?)

Anyway - I found this on the homepage of the European Alluminium Assotiation...
...about aluminium in the body:

It has been estimated that the average human body contains between 35 and 50
mg of aluminium, of which approximately 50% is in the lungs, 25% is in the soft
tissues and 25% in bones. There is no known biological role for aluminium - it
does not appear to be an essential trace element - and the human body has
effective barriers against aluminium uptake. Only a minimal fraction of aluminium
in the diet is absorbed from the digestive tract and in healthy individuals most of
this is very quickly excreted by the kidneys. When aluminium blood levels are
very high, bones appear to act as a "sink", taking up aluminium and subsequently
releasing it slowly over a long period. The brain is vulnerable to many chemical
and biological agents, but is protected by a “blood-brain barrier”- a collection of
cells forming the inner lining of capillary blood vessels which under normal
conditions prevent many substances from entering the brain.
To study aluminium in the body, researchers have fed human volunteers with
more than 100 times the aluminium they ordinarily consume without any effects.

I also found out that alluminium only gets rusty when it comes in touch with acid or lye.

And about aluminium & water:

Aluminium is a natural component in surface and ground water. Most water
authorities throughout the world also use aluminium sulphate or “alum” as a flocculating
agent in treating their water supplies. A flocculating agent is a substance
that, when added to water, attracts small inorganic particulate matter, bacteria
and other organisms potentially harmful to humans, to assist in their filtration.
Some water supplies do not need to be treated with a flocculant, while other supplies
are undrinkable without treatment due to high levels of turbidity, naturally
occurring chemicals and organisms capable of causing disease.
At present there is a WHO guideline for the maximum level of aluminium in
drinking water of 0.2 mg total aluminium per litre. This guideline is essentially set
for the visual effect and taste. No health-based criteria have been proposed for
aluminium levels in drinking water by the World Health Organisation.
Recently the European Commission has also adopted the same guideline level.
Virtually all water contains small amounts of aluminium. In neutral waters this is
present as insoluble compounds, while in highly acidic or alkaline water it may
be present in dissolved form.
Several epidemiology studies have looked at the relationship between aluminium in
water and Alzheimer's Disease. These show very different results, often because
it is difficult to correct for all the other factors influencing the results. A recent
study (1997), where the authors have tried to correct for other factors, shows
no relationship between aluminium content in water and Alzheimer's Disease. It
must also be kept in mind that aluminium in water accounts for less than 1.0% of
the total daily aluminium intake. Some articles have listed the hypothesis that aluminium
in drinking water is more bio-available than other ingested aluminium. A
paper (1995) suggests that this is not the case, and a recent study from Australia
(1998) showed that the bio-availability of aluminium naturally present in food and
in drinking water treated with alum was the same. The latest animal studies have
also shown that it is impossible to predict the aluminium level present in the
human body from calculating aluminium in drinking water.
It is also accepted that where alum is used, the filtered water will often have a
lower total aluminium content than it did before treatment. A recent US study
found that 40% of the treatment plants tested had a lower total aluminium
content in their output than in their raw supply.
Alum has become the benchmark in water treatment world-wide. Alum is arguably
the most effective flocculant available; it is relatively safe to handle, cheap to
produce and due to its very low impurity levels presents little risk of exposure
to toxic chemicals. It is also current expert opinion that alum at conventional
levels poses no risk to human health.

In less words, it doesn't seem to be dangerous for humans

greetings
Joey

[peterj]

wow!

[Joey]

wow!

yep, couldn't sleep. but it was just a copy-and-paste-job

joey

[Sunnyfield]

Thanks Joey, the guy also claimed that aluminium was no longer used for the piping in houses for this reason. It sounded rather dodgy to me. I don't even remember that aluminium has ever been used for piping.

I incorrectly suggested that the water would be contaminated with aluminium-oxide, it is more likely that the aluminium would dissolve in the water, ie mineral traces. (Sorry my terminology must be rather unscientific).

Ah well... the man is too old and set in his ways to argue about it.

[Joey]

Ahh, I know what waterpipes he ment - same thing in Austria, they exchanged lots of them, but I can't find the right name for that metal right now, dang,.....LEAD! it was lead they made the pipes with! Yeah, that was unhealthy... maybe that guy drank too much of it

Joey

[phil]

Yep, lead pipes are only good for coshes.

As far as aluminium is concerned, IMO there are enough open questions about the safety of ingesting trace quantities of this mineral to make it worth being a bit cautious. Certainly cooking acidic sauces in an aluminium pan is not recommended. Furthermore, traces of aluminium in the food chain interferes with the body's ability to absorb other important minerals such as zinc and magnesium.

That said, I don't think there is a major risk with aluminium in contact with small quantities of soft water. There are more important health risks to be concerned about.

[kingseven]

The aluminium used in coffee machine boilers is high grade (or grade A or something) aluminium. This stuff isn't a danger to health, and isn't the stuff causing the health scare.

However it seems that the bad publicity/assosciations is affecting manufacturers and there will be a move towards jacketting the boiler in another metal (such as steel) so the water isn't in contact with the Aluminium.

[Danny]

I dont know if it's bad or good, but I notice the difference in some things.
Cans of soft drink are ok but I cant stand beer from aluminum cans,... Interestingly enough, my wife, who works for a big beer company cant drink more than 4 or 5 aluminium cans without getting a major hangover the next day. This does not happen with glass beers.

I've also heard of a strong correlation between aluminium and mind degenerative problems over the long term. Alzheimers etc.

Cant say that it's been proven tho, and I think that nowdays the metal is of a high enough quality that it does not wear into the water (not so for cheap beer cans I guess)...

I would not be worried about health concerns, since there are plenty of things higher on my paranoia list... I just know that I dont like beers out of tins...