Beta-Methylamino-L-Alanine Induced ALS.

Medicine ≠ engineering.

Interesting it must be some combination with the BMAA...perhaps a genetic link....I look forward to the research...The cure for Alzheimer's could turn out to be some enzyme added to the diet....It does seem odd that this disease is not rampant in Japan where shark fin soup is so popular....In the mean time I would discontinue the blue-green algae supplements...

http://discovermagazine.com/2011/may/22-seafood-toxins-causing-als-alzheimers-parkinsons#.UfiJyo32aSo

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19929733

http://www.mdpi.com/1660-3397/10/2/509

Good post and links SE.

Blue green algae (cyanobacteria) are well known to have caused problems in water treatment systems and are implicated in a lot of issues. Health Canada and WHO and EPA have all issued facts on the problems and warnings to bathers and users. The link to ALS via BMAA is just an added issue. The further information on bio accumulation in shark fins, shellfish, bats, is interesting and should send alarms to humans who dump waste water into bodies of water, fresh or salty. It should also mean we should watch where our fish products come from. The Mekong Delta Bassa are but one species of commercial fish now suspect of containing endocrine disruptors. Although direct pollution of human waste is likely, the increase in algae blooms in contaminated water is also likely to contain increased toxins. The fishermen of Japan may fish sharks from cleaner water.

I take it you already read through this?

Anyway I think that ALS developes over time and it would be a longer process with various practitioners looking at it. For a homicide investigaton it has to be established if this long developement occured or if the period is brief and suspicious.

This will not capture long time poisoning but I hope this was not why you asked.

If there is a way of tracing this BetaMLA you might be able to tell its present in the induvidual case. But this is medicine - not my cup of tea!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lytico-Bodig_disease

Gavilan:

Perhaps by looking into chemical contents of the hair one can say if the person was normally consuming it or it was a planned poisoning as time signature will have time dependent information and concentration levels associated and with some more vital linked information associated with natural contents that go with toxin and missing in poison. Hair will have both mixed and not mixed signatures.

Number of slow poisoning were detected from hair chemical contents and its time marker from hair growth rate.