11 ms·

Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

211 points by howard941 8y ago

hattar 8y ago
What is going on with all the air pollution articles hitting HN this week? This is the 4th(?) I’ve seen in about 3 days. Any tech topic and I might not think about it, but air purification doesn’t really seem to be the kind of topic I’d expect to see so much here.
- darepublic 8y ago
  A lot of HN news has to do with improving/preserving cognition, that's the connection that I see.
  - _bxg1 8y ago
    Also science in general, and the betterment of society.
  - shrimp_emoji 8y ago
    That and even relatively smart people aren't above health neuroticism. "$BAD_THING might happen to you watch out!" Omg. Might need one of these[0]; they say this one's a good model. 0: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FYWU2IS/?pldnSite=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FYWU2IS/?pldnSite=1
- DoingIsLearning 8y ago
  With the risk of coming across as an everything-is-an-ad kind of person, some of the previous posts I read have the following pattern: 1. Someone asks how can they measure air in their home/workplace 2. Followed by casual name dropping of CO2 sensors or air particle/quality sensors. No data to back this up just possibly too much aluminium wrapped around my head.
  - DoingIsLearning 8y ago
    Same goes for HEPA filter purifiers name dropping
  - graeme 8y ago
    I left a bunch of comments in that vein yesterday. The thing is, you can’t answer the question of “how to measure air quality” withiut some sort of product. By contrast, if someone asks “how do I manage my time?” the answer can be free. So if you use a naive filter you’ll be more suspicious of the one case but not the other. But the baseline probability of product mentions is way higher for domains that require products! You can see from my karma and general comment history though that I didn’t make an account to do this. I’ve had an account 8 years and am interested in air quality, to the puzzlement of my peers. If there were new accounts repeatedly dropping the same products, that would be suspicious. Did that happen?
- mensetmanusman 8y ago
  I wonder what the population of HN lurkers is that views the website <3 times per week. For them, this is all new.
- Tactic 8y ago
  I have noticed this phenomena a number of times. My theory is that the first article sparks people digging into the matter and related subjects further. This leads to them posting related articles. A bit of herd like mentality.
- alexandercrohde 8y ago
  Can't speak for anyone else, but I cared about pollution as theory for decades. Even as a child when I had to wait near the idling busses I could sense an innate revulsion at whatever I was inhaling. Maybe what's happening is that after an unfortunately long delay, society is finally coming around to a long overdue conclusion. Some phenomena seem to flip from "absurd" to "obvious" very quickly (gay-marriage, marijuana) once they get a certain critical mass.
jamescostian 8y ago
> Both of these studies estimated that around 6 to 7 percent of all dementia cases in their samples could be attributed to air pollution exposures Is it just me or does this seem very flimsy? Sounds like this model catches very few cases, and there is no mention in TFA of how many false positives were found. The quasi-causal study sounds a bit better, but judging by how much the article seems to have overplayed the correlational studies, I have a feeling the quasi-causal study isn't that good either
- creaghpatr 8y ago
  Hence the word "seems". It's like science but without the rigor.
minikites 8y ago
Lead in particular is nasty and still in use for aviation fuel: >the most commonly used grades of avgas still contain tetraethyllead (TEL), a toxic substance used to prevent engine knocking (detonation), with ongoing experiments aimed at eventually reducing or eliminating the use of TEL in aviation gasoline
- stephen_g 8y ago
  Definitely, but it’s worth noting for people who are unfamiliar - avgas isn’t jet fuel - it’s only used in small piston planes, not anything with turbine engines. It’s still a problem because there are plenty of that kind of aircraft, but most commercial aviation isn’t using leaded fuel.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >It’s still a problem because there are plenty of that kind of aircraft, Yeah. But those aircraft don't tend to inhabit the airspace around cities. Pretty much all small commercial aviation in the lower 48 is going to be running turboprops that use normal jet fuel (basically diesel). A suburban airport that actually has a meaningful GA presence is going to put far more lead into the air.
siliconunit 8y ago
As far as anecdotes go, since I moved to London I noticed a sharp decrease in memory performance, heavy hair loss, and a general feeling of unhealthiness, developed a random persistent cough as well. The fact that you can always see a heavy haze even in short tube tunnels tells a lot on the air quality, the last underground cleaning train stopped working in the eighties...very unhealthy place to live/work in my opinion.
- meower 8y ago
  I think you get used to it after some time, and even get, how should I formulate that, "addicted"? I live in a heavily polluted city -- a couple of chemical plants, a coal power station, and the central heating system burning a few (dozen) tons of coal every day to combat -40°C winters. A lot of my friends/acquaintances (in fact, most of them) have moved to other cities and many of them report having trouble adjusting to less polluted atmosphere: trouble sleeping (after moving within the same timezone), constant headaches, rashes, the list goes on. Also, you hear a lot of stories of older people (third world definition of "older", i.e. around 60), never having a single complaint about their health, moving to cleaner cities and dying in a couple of weeks of strokes and cardiac arrest. It sounds like old wive's tale, but not when you hear it for the twentieth time from the relatives of yet another person affected.
  - knolax 8y ago
    In my experience, pollution has been inversely correlated with outbreak of pollen allergies. However, that could just be caused by polluted environments simply having fewer trees.
  - rincebrain 8y ago
    Well, if you're exposed to higher concentrations of oxygen, you can have exciting amounts of stress getting used to the lower amounts again after, so the converse effect wouldn't be incredibly surprising.
- arethuza 8y ago
  I remember once years ago coming into Heathrow on a flight and when the flight circled over central London there was a distinct brown layer of cloud - it looked disgusting!
netwanderer3 8y ago
According to the evolution theory, eventually our DNA will evolve to adapt to its external environment so does this mean given enough daily exposure over many generations, at some time in a distant future our immune system will no longer consider those particles as foreign and thus will not fight to eliminate it? There would be no dementia by then if it was indeed caused by inflammation triggered by the immune system. I know this sounds pretty stupid but human bodies are weird machines still not fully understood by today science. If some people within the same race could be allergic to certain types of food that are completely safe to others without any proper explanations (eggs, peanuts, etc...) then anything is possible. I'm sure there are people out there who live to 90 without getting dementia even in heaviest polluted cities.
- yoz-y 8y ago
  As far as I understand it, evolution only really happens if the survival of the fittest principle also applies. Modern science does good job keeping people who would otherwise could not survive alive. I think that the answer to get rid of allergies will come from science rather than the natural process. (If ever)
  - frenchy 8y ago
    Not just that, evolution is more about reproduction of the fittest, than survival of the fittest. Any health effects that don't manifest until 40 or later aren't likely to have much influence on evolution.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  That only presupposes that these adaptations are evolutionary beneficial to us - if we live long enough to breed and see our offspring breed, it doesn't actually matter if we develop those adaptations. Selection via ability to breed is how evolution works, and we've largely circumvented that.
- iforgotpassword 8y ago
  Yes and no. Evolution theory would require those who get dementia to go extinct. Usually by the time you develop dementia, you already reproduced, so even if some people become "immune" to pollution, the others won't get removed from the gene pool.
harlanji 8y ago
I definitely notice myself degrading since becoming homeless last year, and its like everything I'm newly subjected to causes dementia and Alzheimers--brake dust, poor air quality, plaque in gums. I lived outside during the wild fires, and I mostly sleep near intersections. (And the homeless must suck it up and compete in the fair market without complaint!) I documented myself on a YouTube channel as I could sense homelessness looming, and have been keeping pretty extensive logs so that it won't be assumed that I became homeless due to my degraded state when they find my body (post hoc ergo propter hoc). I remember how kindly people treated dogs during the wildfires. With all luck, I'll be as intelligent as a dog soon.
- 2Ccltvcm 8y ago
  Plaque in gums is an extremely serious issue that you need to resolve immediately. You can develop many chronic illnesses and deteriorate rapidly If you do not resolve that. If you can't afford a dentist here get a bus ticket to Yuma and walk across the border. Brake dust is gnarly stuff for your health.
- shrimp_emoji 8y ago
  I stalked you, and your resume is great. D: Are you homeless experimentally or out of necessity?
purplezooey 8y ago
"...and found that those who lived closer to major high-traffic roads..." I mean, that's kind of broad.
- veritas_veritad 8y ago
  broad in specific cause, yes- "living near high traffic causes dementia" would be a more suitable headline in your opinion?
ErotemeObelus 8y ago
Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia in Rust.
vwcx 8y ago
Check out the coal and diesel haze over Mongolia in winter. This first video is brutal: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/mongolia-air-pollution/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/mongo...
WhompingWindows 8y ago
I went to an Alzheimer's Conference recently and there was an hour-long talk about air pollution and dementia. 1) The title of this article is bad. In epidemiologic terms, you shouldn't combine the words "seem" and "cause". Seem is about perception, is about possibility, whereas any science writer or epi researcher worth their salt is NOT going to use the term "cause" lightly. There may be an association, a correlation, a linkage even, but cause? No no, dementia is a very broad disease with many potential causes, and likely you will never establish a singular cause for that disease. 2) Regarding the talk I attended itself, there is a wildly broad definition of air pollution out there. Are you talking about ozone, NOx, or particulate matter, and what SIZE of particulate matter? How do you measure lifetime exposure or recent exposure for those moving, and for the dynamic process that is air quality? Then, how do you control for community and cultural based effects of living in certain areas - maybe those with other risk factors are also those forced by poverty/etc. to live in the polluted areas. Summarily, IMHO, air pollution is a contributing factor to dementia, but alone I doubt it'd be sufficient without age-related degeneration, unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, stress, underlying genetics/alleles/mutations, etc. There are probably around 10-20 important factors of which air pollution is one. As a society, let's ditch ICE vehicles, let's ditch coal and dirty industrial practices, both for our planet and for our own health. What can you do now? Stop idling your car, use your brakes as little as possible (i.e. drive efficiently, don't speed up just to have to brake soon), don't go out in hot summer weather, support renewable energy, oppose coal/dirty diesel/inefficient fossil fuel use, and generally vote for politicians who agree with the above and don't take dirty fossil money.
2sk21 8y ago
Most of India is suffering under extremely high levels of particulate pollution - I wonder how this is going to start affecting the population there, especially as life expectancy is increasing.
beenBoutIT 8y ago
Dementia is the new cancer in that it's basically caused by everything and yet most people manage to avoid it entirely.
Proven 8y ago
Seems

211 points by howard941 8y ago

What is going on with all the air pollution articles hitting HN this week? This is the 4th(?) I’ve seen in about 3 days. Any tech topic and I might not think about it, but air purification doesn’t really seem to be the kind of topic I’d expect to see so much here.

darepublic 8y ago
A lot of HN news has to do with improving/preserving cognition, that's the connection that I see.
- _bxg1 8y ago
  Also science in general, and the betterment of society.
- shrimp_emoji 8y ago
  That and even relatively smart people aren't above health neuroticism. "$BAD_THING might happen to you watch out!" Omg. Might need one of these[0]; they say this one's a good model. 0: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FYWU2IS/?pldnSite=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FYWU2IS/?pldnSite=1
DoingIsLearning 8y ago
With the risk of coming across as an everything-is-an-ad kind of person, some of the previous posts I read have the following pattern: 1. Someone asks how can they measure air in their home/workplace 2. Followed by casual name dropping of CO2 sensors or air particle/quality sensors. No data to back this up just possibly too much aluminium wrapped around my head.
- DoingIsLearning 8y ago
  Same goes for HEPA filter purifiers name dropping
- graeme 8y ago
  I left a bunch of comments in that vein yesterday. The thing is, you can’t answer the question of “how to measure air quality” withiut some sort of product. By contrast, if someone asks “how do I manage my time?” the answer can be free. So if you use a naive filter you’ll be more suspicious of the one case but not the other. But the baseline probability of product mentions is way higher for domains that require products! You can see from my karma and general comment history though that I didn’t make an account to do this. I’ve had an account 8 years and am interested in air quality, to the puzzlement of my peers. If there were new accounts repeatedly dropping the same products, that would be suspicious. Did that happen?
mensetmanusman 8y ago
I wonder what the population of HN lurkers is that views the website <3 times per week. For them, this is all new.
Tactic 8y ago
I have noticed this phenomena a number of times. My theory is that the first article sparks people digging into the matter and related subjects further. This leads to them posting related articles. A bit of herd like mentality.
alexandercrohde 8y ago
Can't speak for anyone else, but I cared about pollution as theory for decades. Even as a child when I had to wait near the idling busses I could sense an innate revulsion at whatever I was inhaling. Maybe what's happening is that after an unfortunately long delay, society is finally coming around to a long overdue conclusion. Some phenomena seem to flip from "absurd" to "obvious" very quickly (gay-marriage, marijuana) once they get a certain critical mass.

jamescostian 8y ago

> Both of these studies estimated that around 6 to 7 percent of all dementia cases in their samples could be attributed to air pollution exposures Is it just me or does this seem very flimsy? Sounds like this model catches very few cases, and there is no mention in TFA of how many false positives were found. The quasi-causal study sounds a bit better, but judging by how much the article seems to have overplayed the correlational studies, I have a feeling the quasi-causal study isn't that good either

creaghpatr 8y ago
Hence the word "seems". It's like science but without the rigor.

minikites 8y ago

Lead in particular is nasty and still in use for aviation fuel: >the most commonly used grades of avgas still contain tetraethyllead (TEL), a toxic substance used to prevent engine knocking (detonation), with ongoing experiments aimed at eventually reducing or eliminating the use of TEL in aviation gasoline

stephen_g 8y ago
Definitely, but it’s worth noting for people who are unfamiliar - avgas isn’t jet fuel - it’s only used in small piston planes, not anything with turbine engines. It’s still a problem because there are plenty of that kind of aircraft, but most commercial aviation isn’t using leaded fuel.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >It’s still a problem because there are plenty of that kind of aircraft, Yeah. But those aircraft don't tend to inhabit the airspace around cities. Pretty much all small commercial aviation in the lower 48 is going to be running turboprops that use normal jet fuel (basically diesel). A suburban airport that actually has a meaningful GA presence is going to put far more lead into the air.

siliconunit 8y ago

As far as anecdotes go, since I moved to London I noticed a sharp decrease in memory performance, heavy hair loss, and a general feeling of unhealthiness, developed a random persistent cough as well. The fact that you can always see a heavy haze even in short tube tunnels tells a lot on the air quality, the last underground cleaning train stopped working in the eighties...very unhealthy place to live/work in my opinion.

meower 8y ago
I think you get used to it after some time, and even get, how should I formulate that, "addicted"? I live in a heavily polluted city -- a couple of chemical plants, a coal power station, and the central heating system burning a few (dozen) tons of coal every day to combat -40°C winters. A lot of my friends/acquaintances (in fact, most of them) have moved to other cities and many of them report having trouble adjusting to less polluted atmosphere: trouble sleeping (after moving within the same timezone), constant headaches, rashes, the list goes on. Also, you hear a lot of stories of older people (third world definition of "older", i.e. around 60), never having a single complaint about their health, moving to cleaner cities and dying in a couple of weeks of strokes and cardiac arrest. It sounds like old wive's tale, but not when you hear it for the twentieth time from the relatives of yet another person affected.
- knolax 8y ago
  In my experience, pollution has been inversely correlated with outbreak of pollen allergies. However, that could just be caused by polluted environments simply having fewer trees.
- rincebrain 8y ago
  Well, if you're exposed to higher concentrations of oxygen, you can have exciting amounts of stress getting used to the lower amounts again after, so the converse effect wouldn't be incredibly surprising.
arethuza 8y ago
I remember once years ago coming into Heathrow on a flight and when the flight circled over central London there was a distinct brown layer of cloud - it looked disgusting!

netwanderer3 8y ago

According to the evolution theory, eventually our DNA will evolve to adapt to its external environment so does this mean given enough daily exposure over many generations, at some time in a distant future our immune system will no longer consider those particles as foreign and thus will not fight to eliminate it? There would be no dementia by then if it was indeed caused by inflammation triggered by the immune system. I know this sounds pretty stupid but human bodies are weird machines still not fully understood by today science. If some people within the same race could be allergic to certain types of food that are completely safe to others without any proper explanations (eggs, peanuts, etc...) then anything is possible. I'm sure there are people out there who live to 90 without getting dementia even in heaviest polluted cities.

yoz-y 8y ago
As far as I understand it, evolution only really happens if the survival of the fittest principle also applies. Modern science does good job keeping people who would otherwise could not survive alive. I think that the answer to get rid of allergies will come from science rather than the natural process. (If ever)
- frenchy 8y ago
  Not just that, evolution is more about reproduction of the fittest, than survival of the fittest. Any health effects that don't manifest until 40 or later aren't likely to have much influence on evolution.
SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
That only presupposes that these adaptations are evolutionary beneficial to us - if we live long enough to breed and see our offspring breed, it doesn't actually matter if we develop those adaptations. Selection via ability to breed is how evolution works, and we've largely circumvented that.
iforgotpassword 8y ago
Yes and no. Evolution theory would require those who get dementia to go extinct. Usually by the time you develop dementia, you already reproduced, so even if some people become "immune" to pollution, the others won't get removed from the gene pool.

harlanji 8y ago

I definitely notice myself degrading since becoming homeless last year, and its like everything I'm newly subjected to causes dementia and Alzheimers--brake dust, poor air quality, plaque in gums. I lived outside during the wild fires, and I mostly sleep near intersections. (And the homeless must suck it up and compete in the fair market without complaint!) I documented myself on a YouTube channel as I could sense homelessness looming, and have been keeping pretty extensive logs so that it won't be assumed that I became homeless due to my degraded state when they find my body (post hoc ergo propter hoc). I remember how kindly people treated dogs during the wildfires. With all luck, I'll be as intelligent as a dog soon.

2Ccltvcm 8y ago
Plaque in gums is an extremely serious issue that you need to resolve immediately. You can develop many chronic illnesses and deteriorate rapidly If you do not resolve that. If you can't afford a dentist here get a bus ticket to Yuma and walk across the border. Brake dust is gnarly stuff for your health.
shrimp_emoji 8y ago
I stalked you, and your resume is great. D: Are you homeless experimentally or out of necessity?

purplezooey 8y ago

"...and found that those who lived closer to major high-traffic roads..." I mean, that's kind of broad.

veritas_veritad 8y ago
broad in specific cause, yes- "living near high traffic causes dementia" would be a more suitable headline in your opinion?

ErotemeObelus 8y ago

Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia in Rust.

vwcx 8y ago

Check out the coal and diesel haze over Mongolia in winter. This first video is brutal: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/mongolia-air-pollution/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/mongo...

WhompingWindows 8y ago

I went to an Alzheimer's Conference recently and there was an hour-long talk about air pollution and dementia. 1) The title of this article is bad. In epidemiologic terms, you shouldn't combine the words "seem" and "cause". Seem is about perception, is about possibility, whereas any science writer or epi researcher worth their salt is NOT going to use the term "cause" lightly. There may be an association, a correlation, a linkage even, but cause? No no, dementia is a very broad disease with many potential causes, and likely you will never establish a singular cause for that disease. 2) Regarding the talk I attended itself, there is a wildly broad definition of air pollution out there. Are you talking about ozone, NOx, or particulate matter, and what SIZE of particulate matter? How do you measure lifetime exposure or recent exposure for those moving, and for the dynamic process that is air quality? Then, how do you control for community and cultural based effects of living in certain areas - maybe those with other risk factors are also those forced by poverty/etc. to live in the polluted areas. Summarily, IMHO, air pollution is a contributing factor to dementia, but alone I doubt it'd be sufficient without age-related degeneration, unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, stress, underlying genetics/alleles/mutations, etc. There are probably around 10-20 important factors of which air pollution is one. As a society, let's ditch ICE vehicles, let's ditch coal and dirty industrial practices, both for our planet and for our own health. What can you do now? Stop idling your car, use your brakes as little as possible (i.e. drive efficiently, don't speed up just to have to brake soon), don't go out in hot summer weather, support renewable energy, oppose coal/dirty diesel/inefficient fossil fuel use, and generally vote for politicians who agree with the above and don't take dirty fossil money.

2sk21 8y ago

Most of India is suffering under extremely high levels of particulate pollution - I wonder how this is going to start affecting the population there, especially as life expectancy is increasing.

beenBoutIT 8y ago

Dementia is the new cancer in that it's basically caused by everything and yet most people manage to avoid it entirely.

Proven 8y ago

Seems