The claim is made in a video on Spritzer Bhd’s official website. The video features a professor from England’s Keele University saying drinking Spritzer regularly may help purge the body of aluminium, which he linked to the development of dementia.
MMA president John Chew said Spritzer must back its claim with scientific evidence.
He said there were reasons medical practitioners were against “unsubstantiated claims”, citing last year’s case of “Kangen water” as an example.
Kangen water was filtered alkaline water that the manufacturer claimed could treat 150 chronic illnesses. The authorities disagreed and cracked down on the sale of the water.
“Medical practitioners are against unsubstantiated claims because there is a lot of money to be made,” Chew said.
In the Spritzer video, Keele University’s Christopher Exley talks about research that he says found a link between aluminium and Alzheimer’s disease.
He refers to a study on a 50-year-old woman who died of a form of Alzheimer’s disease, which commonly affects individuals aged 80 to 90.
“We measured the aluminium content in her brain tissue and found it to be extremely high. In fact, the verdict of the coroner in 2013 said it was inevitable that aluminium contributed to her death.”
Exley says another part of the research found that the consumption of silicon-rich mineral water, such as Spritzer, could facilitate the excretion of aluminium from the body.
“The most effective and non-invasive way to reduce an individual’s overall exposure to aluminium is to include in their everyday diet a silicon-rich mineral water. Spritzer, a mineral water from Malaysia, contains 35 mg/l of total silicon,” said the research paper, which is available for reading on the Keele University website.
Spritzer has taken the findings to promote its mineral water, listing the prevention of Alzheimer’s as one of its health benefits.
In a phone interview with FMT, Spritzer executive director Chuah Chaw Teo clarified that the company’s product was not a cure for the disease, but a possible preventive.
He acknowledged that there was no scientific evidence to show aluminium contributed to Alzheimer’s.
“Whether aluminium is the cause of Alzheimer’s disease, that is very debatable,” he said.
He said the company’s only claim was that it had done research and found that Spritzer mineral water “may help prevent Alzheimer’s disease”.
Alzheimer’s Foundation of America defines the disease as a progressive, degenerative disorder that attacks the brain’s nerve cells, resulting in behavioural change, memory loss and deterioration of thinking and language skills.