Is iron dangerous for children with DS?
The claim that iron is dangerous is often based on two suppositions, the first being that since iron is present in plaques in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s disease, iron must be part of the process of the creation of the plaques. However, it has been shown that plaques in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease are very sticky, and contain many things that may not have been involved in the initial formation of the plaques. Researchers have still not come to an agreement on exactly what causes the plaques, and how the plaques actually fit into the clinical picture of dementia. (Readers interested in more on this topic are advised to see the website of the Alzheimer Research Forum.) The second supposition as to why iron might be harmful is based on the fact that people with DS have an excess amount of superoxide dismutase (SOD) in their cells, due to the extra 21st chromosome (see my essay on trisomy for more about this). The excess SOD is supposed to make more hydrogen pero
