Iron can actually SHORTEN your lifespan and age you on a cellular level.
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This study was published in 2024, investigating the effects of iron chelation on age related parameters.
They used a common aging animal model - a Klotho knockout animal.
Animals are known to have shorter lifespans without this gene, and longer lifespans with more of it.
They gave them a drug called deferiprone, which binds up free iron and gets rid of it.
What exactly does klotho do?
Well it's main function is a co-receptor for FGF proteins, which govern various metabolic functions (fat burning, glucose uptake, etc.) as well as vitamin D synthesis.
But it also shows a number of other anti-aging effects:
N-acetylcysteine (NAC) was shown to reverse brain damage from aluminum in a critical study.
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Animals were put into 6 groups - either getting aluminum or NAC or both.
The aluminum was administered as aluminum chloride, and it was done so orally.
This is important because roughly only 0.5% of oral aluminum chloride is absorbed, so the real effective doses the animals received were far less than than the 100 mg / kg.
This is still a high dose, but aluminum is known to accumulate in tissues.
Animals had severely impaired memory performance with the aluminum, but this was improved with NAC.
The morris water test trains rats to find a hidden platform in pool.
The latencies (times) is how long it takes to find it on a given day.
Less time = better memory.
As you can see, the high dose NAC almost completely reversed the memory impairment from aluminum.