Concern over the possible relation between environmental aluminium exp
osure and Alzheimer's disease has prompted studies of all forms of hum
an intake of this element including that from foods. Aluminium cookwar
e, apart from other sources of dietary aluminium, is considered to be
a potential source of this metal to human beings. Various research gro
ups have carried out aluminium leaching experiments with food, beverag
es and water under different experimental conditions modified by varyi
ng the level of pH, chloride, fluoride, citrate, acetate etc. The resu
lts reported by different workers show marked discrepancies in levels
of leached aluminum. The apparent reason for such discrepancy in level
s of aluminum leached can be attributed to factors such as non-systema
tic and non-uniform experimental designs, non-standard conditions main
tained during the experiments and choice of method for aluminium analy
sis. In order to assess accurately the contribution of aluminium inges
tion by human beings through aluminium cookware, the present review em
phasises the need of i) standard size aluminium plates obtained from t
he same lot for one set of experimentations; ii) real life cooking con
ditions to highlight the role of various complexing species present in
food e.g. citrate, oxalate, acetate, tartrate etc.; iii) role of chem
istry of aluminium in presence of acidic, basic and neutral cooking me
dium and iv) strict analytical control in the estimation of aluminium.
Results of a systematic study by the authors conducted on the aboveme
ntioned lines are also described.