[HN Gopher] Long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution linked t...
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Long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution linked to increased
risk of dementia
Author : hhs
Score : 222 points
Date : 2025-08-09 13:01 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cam.ac.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cam.ac.uk)
| hodgehog11 wrote:
| Given that recent Nature paper which claims that a lithium
| depletion could be responsible for Alzheimer's disease, is there
| any mechanism that could link increased air pollution to a
| reduction in lithium levels?
| cluckindan wrote:
| Exposure to another similar metal could in theory displace
| lithium in biological processes.
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| The two have been posited:
|
| Lithium can be viewed an antioxidant - correctly or not?, I do
| not know.
|
| Air pollution can be viewed as oxidative stress.
|
| It's interesting to search Google Scholar for "lithium
| antioxidant".
| cyberax wrote:
| Lithium by itself is not an antioxidant. It's already
| oxidized in any bio-available compound, so it can't be used
| to reduce anything.
|
| But it apparently somehow modulates other systems that help
| with oxidative stress.
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| Thanks!
| ethan_smith wrote:
| Some research suggests air pollution may disrupt blood-brain
| barrier integrity, potentially affecting mineral transport
| including lithium, while particulate matter can also bind to
| metal ions in the bloodstream altering their bioavailability.
| pacifika wrote:
| Proves ULEZ is the right call.
| 0x1ceb00da wrote:
| Current AQI in london ULEZ is 48 according to google maps which
| is not that good. Does that mean AQI is not a very good measure
| of air quality?
| cinntaile wrote:
| It doesn't really make sense what you're saying. First you
| say it's not good but then you question the index. You're
| clearly using the AQI to base your opinion on? To answer the
| ULEZ question you should compare to not having ULEZ there,
| which is what the GP was talking about.
| 0x1ceb00da wrote:
| Right so london aqi used to be much worse but ULEZ helped.
| CJefferson wrote:
| I don't know the current average, but it used to often be
| much higher than that. Maybe the average has improved?
| daemonologist wrote:
| 48 is decent - at the high end of the "good" range - but AQI
| fluctuates a lot from day to day. There were some fires on
| the other side of the continent from me and that was enough
| to bump the AQI here above 80.
|
| Here's a report with some longer term trends (warning: 2MB
| PDF download):
| https://www.london.gov.uk/media/105046/download . Air
| pollution is down across London, and sharply so on the most
| proximate roadside sensors.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| I wish all diesels could be included in the ULEZ ban. Or at
| minimum all non commercial diesel engines.
|
| As a motorbike rider I can taste the diesel fumes as soon as
| I'm behind one in a way that's unlike any petrol car.
|
| There's large particulates being thrown out by even the most
| luxurious diesel cars that you simply couldn't tell if you're
| behind in a car.
| lemonberry wrote:
| As the sole caregiver for a father with dementia I can tell you
| it's a nightmare.
|
| If you have children please, please plan for late life care. And
| if you're going to be caring for either of your parents start
| planning and build a support network. By the time I knew I needed
| help I was drowning. Learn how to ask for help. I thought I was a
| relatively progressive 50 year old man, but it turns out help is
| a 4-letter word.
| d4mi3n wrote:
| You have my condolences. I helped my wife care for her late
| father with Lewy body dementia. I think many people recognize
| they may need to care for the people that raised them at some
| point, but the realities of the costs--both financially and
| emotionally--are rarely discussed. @lemonberry feel free to
| reach out if you need a friendly ear, my email is in my
| profile.
|
| On a personal note to anyone in this situation: Do not go it
| alone. Being a caregiver is _hard_ , but being a caregiver for
| someone with serious memory issues is brutal and requires 24/7
| monitoring. Your loved one will not always cooperate. They may
| change into someone who does not resemble the person you knew.
| Many states require such persons to be homed somewhere with a
| 24/7 nursing staff. Plan accordingly.
| saltcured wrote:
| My sympathies.
|
| As hard as it is, supporting family members also need to learn
| to prioritize taking care of themselves and avoiding a spiral
| towards burnout. With dementia, there is often a time when the
| patient needs a more controlled environment with 24x7
| supervision. Dementia sleep schedules and behaviors fall apart
| and are not really compatible with a family caregiver's own
| health needs.
|
| Depending on the dementia case, risky behaviors may emerge at
| night, and having observant caregivers awake 24x7 may be very
| important. The financial picture for this is quite difficult in
| the US. Normally this requires a care facility at some point,
| as it is impossibly expensive to bring sufficient dementia care
| via visiting professionals.
|
| To safely handle dementia with "sundowning" and wandering
| behaviors, you usually need a facility that has about a dozen
| residents or more. Then, budgets allow for multiple onsite
| staff and overnight wakeful staff. This can bring more distinct
| staff roles too, e.g. cooking and housekeeping versus care.
|
| Even this may be overwhelmingly costly, to the point where the
| dementia ends up depleting the estate and then shifting to some
| kind of government support. For family or trustees managing
| this process, it is full of difficult decisions regarding
| budget and care tradeoffs. For example, do you splurge on
| "nicer" facilities or other caregiver factors early on, or try
| to reserve more funds for the inevitable crises? Dementia can
| be a drawn-out process, where care needs expand to a crescendo
| before collapsing back to hospice care, which may be more like
| other terminal illnesses.
| lemonberry wrote:
| Thank you. All of this is absolutely true. Thankfully, there
| has been no risky behavior. However, as soon as that is the
| case I have some pretty big decisions to make.
| ashleyn wrote:
| One major reason I'm working extra years despite being FI is so
| I have money to provide for memory care for my parents if they
| end up needing that. They have downright nothing to their name
| and memory care can easily run into half a million dollars
| total.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Don't neglect yourself. Wishing you the best.
| https://www.caregiveraction.org/
| lemonberry wrote:
| Thank you! People are always telling me about organizations
| that can help, but honestly, I waffle between tunnel vision
| and absolute overwhelm. It makes acting on suggestions very
| difficult.
| linotype wrote:
| My wife and I don't have children, but my exit strategy is
| assisted suicide. I have no intention of living past my brain.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Willing to share if/what's your plans? Do you live in a
| somewhat helping country like Swiss?
|
| I've a similar view for myself but my GF find it creepy and
| don't want discuss it, yet. That's embarrassing, I don't want
| to cause grief by a surprise disparition.
|
| Practically speaking there's NGOs that can help and even send
| kits after a (long) checkup. Inert gas asphyxia seems to be a
| classic as it's fast, painless and quite cheap/easy.
| linotype wrote:
| I haven't made concrete plans yet as that should be decades
| away (though maybe I should anyway) and the laws change all
| the time depending on the jurisdiction. I live in a country
| that's fairly lax gun wise so I could always take care of
| it myself.
| knowitnone2 wrote:
| well, long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution already
| shortens their lifespan so they won't even live long enough to
| reach the average age for dementia
| sillyfluke wrote:
| Well, the Yuramal in Colombia are the people that hold the
| record for the most Alzeihmer cases because many possess the
| gene for early onset and exhibit the diseases at 40 year of
| age. So for them the age is quite young. This goes to show that
| currently the record is held by genetic factors and not
| environmental factors.
|
| But they also show that it instead of eliminating the root
| cause of the disease, the solution might be eliminating its
| symptoms instead. Cause one woman who had the gene defied all
| odds and exhibited the symptom of the disease in her 70s. The
| reasoning is that another gene she had, the Christchurch gene,
| protected her brain from the disease. So if someone can use
| that info to prevent symptoms of the disease eliminating the
| root cause would become secondary.
| jt2190 wrote:
| > ... defied all odds and exhibited the symptom of the
| disease in her 70s.
|
| I assume you mean: "exhibited _no_ symptoms of the disease
| _until_ her 70s ".
|
| Other than luck, did they have any idea why she was able to
| resist the disease for so long?
| boothby wrote:
| That's an egregious abuse of statistics. It seems entirely
| implausible that the age of dementia onset would not move in
| parallel with lifespan.
| Drunk_Engineer wrote:
| Literally car-brained.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Nice to know I've got bits of tire in my brain.
| cluckindan wrote:
| And a credit card.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Coal trains:
|
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/07/coal-pollution-is-ki...
| |
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393512...
| | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2024.118787
|
| Warehouses:
|
| _Air pollution impacts from warehousing in the United States
| uncovered with satellite data_ -
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-50000-0 |
| https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-50000-0
|
| _Where Warehouses Are Built, Air Pollution Follows_ -
| https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153471/where-wareho...
|
| _Impact of Warehouse Expansion on Ambient PM2.5 and Elemental
| Carbon Levels in Southern California 's Disadvantaged
| Communities: A Two-Decade Analysis_ -
| https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GH00...
| | https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GH001091
|
| Global air quality map: https://explore.openaq.org/
|
| (this is why it is so important to electrify trucks and to
| disallow industrial and commercial parks with lots of truck
| traffic near residential and school areas; all of this
| combustion/fossil energy pollution is creating health debt that
| will catch up with us)
| bethekidyouwant wrote:
| For a brief fleeting moment, man was not plagued by indoor air
| pollution nor outdoor air pollution
| smokel wrote:
| That was before the invention of fire? I think we had even
| worse problems back then.
| OJFord wrote:
| I think they mean with mains gas able to replace wood and
| coal fires, but before significant use of internal combustion
| engine vehicles.
| roywiggins wrote:
| Lighting before/during gaslight was in some ways worse than
| that, people routinely lit their homes and workplaces with
| nasty lamp fuels. You could either burn turpentine (which
| was smokey) or turpentine and alcohol (which wasn't, but
| was volatile and prone to exploding and setting people on
| fire).
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camphine
|
| Better options existed but weren't as affordable.
| api wrote:
| People probably just didn't live as long back then and so
| dementia didn't have time to surface. Or it did but people
| lived in tight knit small groups and managed it.
| ath3nd wrote:
| Just so we are clear, are you denying that air pollution
| plays a role in developing dementia?
| api wrote:
| No, agreeing that it may have been worse when people
| slept with camp fires in tents but that we may not have
| noticed due to shorter life spans.
| cjtrowbridge wrote:
| This is an obvious third-factor for poverty and marginalization.
| Air pollution exposure is the most classic example of unequal
| protection from harm in environmental justice. Alameda county did
| a study on this that found as an isolated, direct-result of
| unequal exposure to air pollution, black people live 15 years
| less than white people on average in Alameda County alone.
| olalonde wrote:
| I find this very hard to believe... Mind sharing that study?
| vallierx wrote:
| From a quick google search I'm guessing this study:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11097628/
| Tade0 wrote:
| Same. I hail from a particularly polluted (compared to the
| rest of the EU) country, so PM2.5 over 80ug/m3 during the
| entire heating season, NOx constantly above 50ug/m3 in cities
| due to old diesels with anti-pollution devices turned off or
| removed entirely and the overall effect is said to be a 3-6
| years shorter life expectancy.
|
| It checks out compared to countries without these issues, so
| 15 years to me sounds exaggerated, especially if we're
| talking about areas close to each other.
|
| Such a huge shortening normally involves heavy metal
| pollution of the drinking water and soil.
| dash2 wrote:
| Yeah, I mean, how do they identify the causal effect here?
| It's obviously not easy, because polluted areas are also poor
| areas, and poor people live in poor areas (and have other
| problems).
|
| It would be nice if the article had mentioned this issue. A
| metastudy of lots of bad correlational studies is just
| garbage in garbage out. So, did they address the issue?
|
| There are ways round it, by the way. As a recent review said:
|
| "it is unclear why federal ISAs that are the input into all
| regulatory analyses tend not to incorporate the emerging body
| of evidence on the effects of air pollution on health
| outcomes from the economics literature despite the additional
| rigor imposed by the emphasis on causal inference."
|
| https://www.annualreviews.org/docserver/fulltext/resource/15.
| ..
| timeon wrote:
| On the other hand life expectancy of richest people in US is on
| par with poorest in EU. (Poverty is still factor within those
| regions).
| sebmellen wrote:
| This is simply not true, at least if you consider all of
| Europe.
| Aurornis wrote:
| ...in one single cohort-based study that only looked at
| around 10K deaths between the United States and 16 European
| countries, not the EU or all of Europe.
|
| Life expectancy in the EU varies a lot by country. Someone
| born in Sweden has a life expectancy over ten years longer
| than someone born in Latvia.
|
| That one study feels like a paper that was engineered to make
| headlines and social media sound bites, not to be an accurate
| look at the entire population.
| tomrod wrote:
| If you could see long term PM2.5 averages and how they vary,
| we'd approach as a national crisis.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266601722...
| (this groups methods can be substantially improved).
|
| Having done some additional follow on work in the space -- the
| results definitely do not follow socioeconomic boundaries as
| one might expect.
|
| Roads are a huge contributor.
| rr808 wrote:
| Literally the poor people in London lived in the East End
| because it was downwind.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| > Dementias such as Alzheimer's disease are estimated to affect
| more than 57.4 million people worldwide, a number that is
| expected to almost triple to 152.8 million cases by 2050
|
| Meaningless number. Make it % or incidence rate per 1000 or
| something.
|
| 57 million people? That's not so many compared to the billion in
| China or India. Or is it? Compare it to cancers or car accidents.
| craftkiller wrote:
| > Make it % or incidence rate per 1000 or something.
|
| Just type it into a calculator. The computer will do all the
| work.
|
| Current world population is ~8 billion so 57_000_000 /
| 8_000_000_000 = 0.007125
|
| So 0.7% or 7 per 1000 people.
| echelon wrote:
| Dementia is a disease that mostly effects elderly patients,
| so make the denominator the number of people in the 65-100
| age group.
|
| Roughly 10% of the world population, or 800 million, fall
| within this age group.
|
| 57_000_000 / 800_000_000 ~= 7%
|
| That's quite a large number of people who will be impacted.
|
| > a number that is expected to almost triple to 152.8 million
| cases by 2050
|
| I don't have the statistics for the elderly population in
| 2050, but if we assume the proportion is the same (it won't
| be), then the higher incidence case rate is sobering.
|
| It's nearly 20%.
| sgustard wrote:
| The increase is almost entirely due to aging population.
|
| "The Lancet study indicates that although the total number of
| dementia cases is expected to increase substantially, the
| percentage of the global population affected, once _age-
| adjusted_ , remains nearly constant, with just a 0.1% change
| globally between 2019 and 2050"
| ahaucnx wrote:
| What's important to understand is that PM2.5 is not PM2.5.
|
| It only defines the diameter of the particles but can be composed
| of very different elements. From salt that dissolves in the lungs
| to toxic metals.
|
| Currently it is extremely difficult to get a comprehensive
| understanding of the health impacts of these particles.
|
| Much more research needs to be done to understand which particle
| compositions and thus what sources of air pollution (eg traffic,
| wildfires, factories, landfills, ports etc) have what kind of
| health effects.
|
| If you are interested to see an image how different PM2.5
| particle look like, have a look at the photo in this blog post
| that one of our in-house scientists wrote [1].
|
| [1] https://www.airgradient.com/blog/pm25-is-not-pm25/
|
| (Edited and replaced weight with diameter)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It only defines the weight of the particles
|
| Diameter, not weight. PM2.5 is particles of diameter 2.5mm or
| less.
| ahaucnx wrote:
| Yes of course! Thanks for pointing it out. I corrected the
| above.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| You're both right enough. Aerodynamic diameter doesn't
| measure the particles themselves, but how their settling
| velocity compares to a spherical reference ideal of a certain
| density (1g/cm*3) in a medium.
|
| I don't deal with gas cleaning, but at those scales, if you
| work a lot with applied processes like filtration and
| separation, you can ballpark things like daltons with mass
| and size. I know I do with MWCOs.
| echelon wrote:
| If I had to place bets, it would be reactive species. PAHs,
| alcohols, and other volatiles.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Even VOC is still an open question. Are great smelling food,
| onions, etc bad for our lungs?
| HSO wrote:
| very interesting article, thanks for posting
| alfor wrote:
| Get a cheap air filter at Ikea, or in a pinch a box fan with a
| HVAC filter taped to it.
| 8s2ngy wrote:
| What can I do to minimize the effects of air pollution if I have
| to live in a city with high pollution levels? It seems completely
| out of my control.
| ahaucnx wrote:
| You can use an air purifier. The Hepa filters are effective in
| eliminating PM. Gases like NO2 and VOCs can be reduced with
| carbon filters. Make sure that your carbon filter is large and
| different get saturated too quickly.
| 5pl1n73r wrote:
| Don't go outside. Move only in cars. To be honest, going
| outside sucks in most cities.
| nerevarthelame wrote:
| The air in a car comes from the outside.
| lurk2 wrote:
| It passes through a filter.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| In Paris a study showed +3 years of life expectancy for
| cyclists and +2 for public transport users, compared to car
| commuters. They correlated it with (not a surprise) the
| benefits of exercice. Sure the pollution effect is worse
| outside of your car but the gains of daily light exercise
| offsets the drawbacks of air pollution.
| 01100011 wrote:
| Recently started looking at daycares in San Diego. All the good
| ones near me are within a couple hundred feet of a major freeway.
| I can't believe people send their kids to something like that.
|
| Intuitively, I don't mind the ones 0.5 mi away from the freeway,
| especially if the prevailing winds place them up-wind. I have no
| idea if that's correct, but it seems to me that you'd have a
| fairly fast drop-off in noxious substances as you move away from
| the freeway.
|
| We also have this recent trend of building huge apartment
| complexes right next to the freeways while many of the nicer
| areas are given to commercial and industrial uses. Makes no sense
| to me.
| monster_truck wrote:
| It's only been what, 20 years since we've been able to remove the
| lead from avgas and haven't?
| nickff wrote:
| This was the case until recently, but I believe the FAA (and
| some but not all other regulators) has now approved a one-to-
| one unleaded option (which was created some time ago, and took
| a long time to approve,) and it is being adopted.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| What I have been told (by a airplane pilot) is that it takes a
| long time to distribute the unleaded fuel to the airports.
| swayvil wrote:
| This would suggest that a city is a hive of insanity. The bigger
| the crazier.
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