Plasma concentrations of inorganic sulfate in Alzheimer's disease

Trace element analysis of hairs in patients with dementia

The trace elements of scalp hair samples from > or =60-year-old dementia patients and normal persons have been studied by X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES) in fluorescent mode and wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. Comparisons of hair trace element levels of age-matched dementia patients and normal persons revealed significantly elevated amounts of calcium, chlorine and phosphorus in dementia patients relative to normal persons. The results of XANES measurements identify the chemical forms of deposited calcium and phosphorus in the hair samples of both dementia patients and normal persons to be calcium chloride (CaCl(2)) and phosphate (PO(4)(3-)), respectively. The amount of sulfur in hairs of dementia patients was found to be not significantly different from that in normal persons. The sulfur K-edge XANES spectra, however, show significantly higher accumulations of sulfur in the sulfate (SO(4)(2-)) form in hairs of Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease dementia patients. This study presents the possible roles of calcium, chlorine, phosphorus and sulfur in the etiology of dementia in elderly patients.

Plasma levels of inorganic sulfates in patients with Parkinson's disease

Some investigators reported pharmacogenetic differences in the metabolism of sulfur-containing drugs and lower plasma sulfate levels in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) compared with controls. However, other group did not confirm these findings. We studied the plasma levels of sulfate by indirect atomic absorption spectrophotometry in 55 PD patients and 57 age and sex-matched controls. The plasma sulfate levels did not differ significantly between PD patients and control groups (mean +/- SEM 73 +/- 8 and 75 +/- 7 mg/l, respectively). They were not influenced by antiparkinsonian drugs and they did not correlate with age at onset, duration, Hoehn & Yahr staging or activities of daily living subscale of the Unified Parkinson's disease rating scale. There was a low but significant correlation of plasma sulfate levels with motor examination (r = -0.39, p < 0.05) and total score (r = -0.33, p < 0.05) of this scale in the PD group. These data suggest that plasma sulfate levels are apparently unrelated with the risk for PD.