Air & Alzheimer’s

We’re all concerned about the quality of air we inhale, and we see more and more information published about the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease … as well as having the experience of helping someone we know who is inflicted. But until now I hadn’t expected to see this kind of direct correlation between the two.

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The surprising link

between air pollution

and Alzheimer’s disease

 

Melissa Healy

Contact Reporter

LA Times

 

With environmental regulations expected to come under heavy fire from the Trump administration, new research offers powerful evidence of a link between air pollution and dementia risk.

For older women, breathing air that is heavily polluted by vehicle exhaust and other sources of fine particulates nearly doubles the likelihood of developing dementia, finds a study published Tuesday. And the cognitive effects of air pollution are dramatically more pronounced in women who carry a genetic variant, known as APOE-e4, which puts them at higher risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease.

In a nationwide study that tracked the cognitive health of women between the ages of 65 and 79 for 10 years, those who had the APOE-e4 variant were nearly three times more likely to develop dementia if they were exposed to high levels of air pollution than APOE-e4 carriers who were not.

Among carriers of that gene, older women exposed to heavy air pollution were close to four times likelier than those who breathed mostly clean air to develop “global cognitive decline” — a measurable loss of memory and reasoning skills short of dementia.

While scientists have long tallied the health costs of air pollution in asthma, lung disease and cardiovascular disease, the impact of air pollutants on brain health has only begun to come to light. This study gleans new insights into how, and how powerfully, a key component of urban smog scrambles the aging brain.

Published Tuesday in the journal Translational Psychiatry, the research looks at a large population of American women, at lab mice, and at brain tissue in petri dishes to establish a link between serious cognitive decline and the very fine particles of pollution emitted by motor vehicles, power plants and the burning of biomass products such as wood.

All three of these biomedical research methods suggest that exposure to high levels of fine air pollutants increases both dementia’s classic behavioral signs of disorientation and memory loss as well as its less obvious hallmarks. These include amyloid beta protein clumps in the brain and the die-off of cells in the brain’s hippocampus, a key center for memory formation.

Using air pollution standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, researchers found significant differences on all those measures between those who breathed clean air and those exposed to pollution levels deemed unsafe.

In lab mice, breathing air collected over the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles led to brain concentrations of amyloid protein that were more dense and more likely to form dangerous clumps than breathing air that satisfied EPA standards before 2012. When lab mice were bred with a strong predisposition to develop dementia and its hallmarks, the brain differences between pollution-breathing animals and those that breathed clean air were starker.

In 2011, a study in the journal Lancet found that those who lived close to densely trafficked roads were at a far higher risk of stroke and dementia than those who lived farther away. A year later, a team led by Alzheimer’s disease researcher Dr. Samuel Gandy at Mt. Sinai in New York first established that air pollutants induced inflammation, cell death and the buildup of amyloid protein in the brains of mice.

The new study extends those findings.

Authored by geriatric and environmental health specialists at USC, the new study estimates that before the EPA set new air pollution standards in 2012, some 21% of new cases of dementia and of accelerated cognitive decline could likely have been attributed to air pollution.

The Trump administration has signaled it will look to scrap or substantially rewrite Obama administration regulations that tightened emissions from power plants and established tougher fuel efficiency standards for cars in an effort to curb climate change and reduce air pollution. Chen said …

“If people in the current administration are trying

to reduce the cost of treating diseases, including

dementia, then they should know that relaxing the

Clean Air Act regulations will do the opposite.”

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While I tend to avoid getting sucked into political debates, I do care about ensuring we enjoy as great a quality of life experience as we can.

After WWII, many countries built large, regional power plants – usually coal or nuclear powered. Over time, new plants have become smaller and smaller, with most powered by natural gas.  Now we’re essentially moving to more localized renewable systems, many using wind or tidal power.  And many of us are creating the most localized power plants … photovoltaic panels right on the roof of our home.

The newer systems also let us enjoy healthier air.

Once power from PV panels became less expensive than coal, which has historically the cheapest form of power production, virtually no political system can cause coal resurgence, any more than they can bring back buggy whips. In fact, the PV industry already employs more people than coal … in healthier work environments, and at higher wages.

And the more you shift your own power consumption to any of the renewable sources, the cleaner our air will be. Then, perhaps we can see and enjoy a decline in Alzheimer’s onsets.

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