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Younger generations less likely to have dementia, study suggests
- nikolay 1y agoMany toxins were eliminated from everyday products and environments.
- scroot 1y agoLead?
- gwbas1c 1y agoPersonally, I think it's some other pollutant. That being said, there's some remarkable correlations with bans on leaded gasoline.
- olddustytrail 1y agoThe man who invented leaded gasoline - Thomas Midgley Jr. - also invented CFCs. He's been referred to as a "one man environmental disaster".
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- SoftTalker 1y agoTwo things we know for sure now, and probably knew pretty well even then, chlorinated hydrocarbons and heavy metals are not good for the environment. They have their industrial uses but need to be used with care.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> Lead? Unclear. The cohort most exposed to atmospheric lead was born between 1951 and 1980 [1]. This study only measures those born before 1948. (To the extent the study supports a hypothesis, it's the null. Given atmospheric lead increased from 1890 onwards, until about the 1980s [2], if lead were the culprit we'd expect to see more dementia among the study's younger generations. Not less.) [1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2118631119 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2118631119 [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618223002951 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10406...
- Nopoint2 1y agoCars only fully replaced horses after WW2, so they were the first universally exposed generation, if anything.
- Ifkaluva 1y agoWould be a crazy plot twist if social media and doomscrolling were protective against dementia
- mentos 1y agoAren’t puzzles recommended for the elderly to keep their minds active? Curious to see how a lifetime of nonstop digital interactive puzzles leaves us. (Video games)
- opan 1y agoThis would make for a neat study considering all the different genres of video games. I imagine they wouldn't all have an equal effect.
- lagniappe 1y agoThis is the most egregious rationalization of the Capcha dystopia I've ever seen.
- whynotminot 1y agoCaptcha… the whole time it was the true bicycle for the mind
- bsimpson 1y agoPlease select the squares that contain the bicycle for the mind.
- akimbostrawman 1y agoBillion dollar idea right there. Why pay third world countries to solve them when the elderly could do it for free to there own benefit.
- UncleOxidant 1y agosomehow I suspect it's going to be the opposite.
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoStudy: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2834750 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
- pedalpete 1y agoInteresting to see they are rating dementia as the 7th leading cause of death[1]. In Australia the common understanding is Alzheimer's is currently the 2nd and will likely claim the 1st spot in the next decade [2]. The study seems to go against everything else I've seen which suggests that as people are living longer, the incidence are increasing, not decreasing. However, my understanding is that as we get better at curing cancers, reducing heart-disease, and generally increasing life-span, the longer a person lives, the more likely they are to get dementia. [1]https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dementia https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dementia [2]https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/australias-leading-cause-death-brink-change https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/australia...
- georgeburdell 1y agoThe article doesn’t seem to posit one single cause, but anecdotally, the people in my family with dementia were women. One got it from smoking. Three others had Alzheimer’s. The one who had it least bad was the one who had a job other than housewife
- gwbas1c 1y agoHow do you get dementia from smoking?
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago"Smoking increases the risk of vascular problems (problems with the heart and blood vessels). These vascular problems are also linked to the two most common forms of dementia: Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. Toxins in cigarette smoke also cause inflammation and stress to cells, which have both been linked to Alzheimer's disease." https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/managing-the-risk-of-dementia/reduce-your-risk-of-dementia/smoking https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/managing-the-ri...
- jjtheblunt 1y agothanks for this link: they're interesting to mid 50s me, who never smoked, but whose dad did smoke for decades, and his memory started failing late 80s, i'd never seen it. useful link.
- toast0 1y agoI don't know how you determine causality of dementia. But smoking leads to poor heart and lung health and function, and that's got to have follow on effects on brain health. And there's correlation linking smoking to dementia [1]. So, I think it's fair to say grandma smokes a lot who had dementia got it from smoking even without a specific link. [1] https://www.heart.org/en/news/2021/07/06/smoking-harms-the-brain-raises-dementia-risk-but-not-if-you-quit https://www.heart.org/en/news/2021/07/06/smoking-harms-the-b...
- francisofascii 1y ago
- gwbas1c 1y agoA while back I read Silent Spring, and the author made an interesting note: Pesticides used in the 1960s were neurotoxins, and she feared that they could cause neurological disorders. We now use different pesticides.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> Pesticides used in the 1960s were neurotoxins, and she feared that they could cause neurological disorders. We now use different pesticides The "younger generations" in this study were born between 1944 and 1948. (Older, 1890 to 1913.) Pesticides don't explain why those born in the former have less dementia than those born between 1939 and 1943.
- cogman10 1y agoThey do if the effects are cumulative. They additionally cite in the article that perhaps it's smoking that's changed, yet that also didn't really significantly change in public until the 90s. 40 additional years of pesticides/lead/smoking/etc will take their toll.
- dragonwriter 1y ago> They additionally cite in the article that perhaps it's smoking that's changed, yet that also didn't really significantly change in public until the 90s. Prevalence of smoking in the US peaked at around 45% in the 1950s, and had dropped to around 25% by the 1990s. (Depending on your own age, this may feel wrong because there was a surge in youth smoking from the 80s peaking in the mid-1990s, so its easy for people in a certainnage range to feel like smoking was very prevalent through the 1990s, and then dropped like a rock.)
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> Prevalence of smoking in the US peaked at around 45% in the 1950s, and had dropped to around 25% by the 1990s Wouldn't you expect to see more variation between the American and European cohorts if smoking were the culprit?
- mullingitover 1y agoIt's gonna be, at least in part, vaccines[1]. If we invented drugs today that did what routine vaccinations did for Alzheimer's prevention, it would be hailed as a medical miracle. > Patients who received the Tdap/Td vaccine were 30% less likely than their unvaccinated peers to develop Alzheimer’s disease (7.2% of vaccinated patients versus 10.2% of unvaccinated patients developed the disease). Similarly, HZ vaccination was associated with a 25% reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (8.1% of vaccinated patients versus 10.7% of unvaccinated patients). For the pneumococcal vaccine, there was an associated 27% reduced risk of developing the disease (7.92% of vaccinated patients versus 10.9% of unvaccinated patients). [1] https://www.uth.edu/news/story/several-vaccines-associated-with-reduced-risk-of-alzheimers-disease-in-adults-65-and-older https://www.uth.edu/news/story/several-vaccines-associated-w...
- pinkmuffinere 1y agoThat’s super interesting! From the first line I thought this comment was going to go the other way, lol…
- SoftTalker 1y agoStill hard to draw conclusions. It could be that people who get all the recommended vaccines are just in general more health-conscious and this has some relationship to dementia risk.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> could be that people who get all the recommended vaccines are just in general more health-conscious and this has some relationship to dementia risk Huh, it looks deeper than mere correlation [1][2]. The simple explanation is inflammation. The intriguing potential is the vaccines train the immune system to clear something harmful. EDIT: It looks like some HSV antibodies also attack various Alzheimer's-related compounds, including "Aß protein, tau protein, presenilin, rabaptin-5, β-NGF, BDNF, mTG, and enteric nerve" [3]. Wild. I wonder if there is a link between the vaccination status of a mother and childhood dementia presentation. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03201-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03201-5 [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33856020/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33856020/ [3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6032666/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6032666/
- reverendsteveii 1y agohttps://www.michiganmedicine.org/health-lab/sleep-apnea-contributes-dementia-older-adults-especially-women https://www.michiganmedicine.org/health-lab/sleep-apnea-cont... While we're speculating as to causes obstructive sleep apnea is associated with dementia, estimates are that 30 million people have it, and we only invented CPAPs in 1980.
- jajko 1y agoDude, global estimate for OSA is in the range of 1 billion, its a global pandemic
- bhouston 1y agoAre cpaps that widely used to have that significant of an effect? For CPAP to be primarily responsible, we would need a very sizeable portion of the population to be using them, but I think the numbers are less than 3% right? From the article as to the effect size: “For example, in the US, among people aged 81 to 85, 25.1% of those born between 1890–1913 had dementia, compared to 15.5% of those born between 1939–1943,” I'm not saying that CPAPs don't contribute, but they are not likely the main contributors.
- alargemoose 1y agoI think you have this backwards. OP is saying sleep apnea is common, but we’ve only had CPAP machines to compensate for it, since the 80s. I don’t see them trying to implicate CPAP as the cause of an increase in dementia.
- sokoloff 1y agoI read that as saying that 3% CPAP usage couldn’t explain a 10% drop in dementia.
- Someone 1y agoI think bhouston is arguing (correctly) you can’t have a 10% of the population drop in dementia prevalence by an intervention that only targets 3% of the population, so even if CPAPs contribute, that does not explain most of the drop. (If everybody who uses CPAPs would get dementia, and they are 100% effective at preventing that, the drop would still be ‘only’ 3% of the population)
- mike-the-mikado 1y agoI think that head injuries are a known cause of dementia (my father suffered a serious head injury and developed dementia a few years later at the age of about 70). It has been implicated in connection with sports injuries (boxing, rugby, heading a ball). I wonder if the risk of head injury has reduced with time?
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> head injuries are a known cause of dementia Almost 2x more likely [1]. > wonder if the risk of head injury has reduced with time? The lack of spikes from the world wars would suggest otherwise. [1] https://karger.com/ned/article-pdf/56/1/4/3752570/000520966.pdf https://karger.com/ned/article-pdf/56/1/4/3752570/000520966....
- MangoToupe 1y agoI think being around explosions actually IS linked to Alzheimer's. It wouldn't surprise me to find a link to dementia as well. But generally, bullets, disease, and malnutrition don't cause the same sort of brain trauma. https://newsroom.uw.edu/news-releases/blast-related-concussions-linked-to-higher-alzheimers-risk https://newsroom.uw.edu/news-releases/blast-related-concussi...
- WalterBright 1y ago60 Minutes recently ran a segment on the cumulative damage of relatively small explosions (such as rifle shots) can lead to brain injury and dementia, even with hearing protection.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- genewitch 1y agoI know i gave you a little crap vis a vis the toyota stuck accelrator thing in another thread, but i quoted you about this stat twice, yesterday. I rarely pay attention to usernames when replying, and you have a breadth of experience that doesn't immediately identify who's "speaking." how many books have you written ;-)
- ipnon 1y agoAn extremely simple hypothesis: The world of today is more cognitively demanding. To take a very simple empirical example, 7% of 25 year olds had a college degree in 1960, 36% in 2020! You have to wonder what the neuroprotective effects are of being able to write an essay, analyze a novel, perform a chemical experiment, prove a theorem, whatever, over a lifetime. But it's well-established that the brain, like all other organs of the body, is "use it or lose it."
- raducu 1y agoAlso being bilingual delays alzheimers by 7 years, so there must be something to dementia also.
- esperent 1y ago4.7 years. Also, no evidence that it reduces the risk of getting it, the benefit is purely delayed onset. Still, I'd take an extra 5 years of working brain, if only I could learn a second language (does Python count?). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7089902/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7089902/
- Klaus_ 1y ago[dead]
- Caelus9 1y agoI’ve been thinking maybe part of it is just how much more we use our brains these days without even noticing. Like, my grandparents had tough lives, sure, but things were pretty routine. They did the same tasks every day, didn’t have to constantly adapt or juggle ten different things at once. Now? We’re switching between apps, replying to emails, figuring out random tech stuff, managing a million small decisions all day long. Even doing something simple like buying groceries online comes with dozens of tiny choices. So maybe it’s not just about avoiding brain damage maybe we’re giving our brains a constant workout without realizing it. Not saying we’re geniuses, but just being mentally active every day might help keep things sharp over time.
- oldpersonintx2 1y agoyour grandparents probably read for entertainment instead of tiktok your grandparents were more physically active - brain and body are connected your grandparents didn't eat ultra processed food because it hadn't been invented yet...once again, brain and body are connected
- spacebanana7 1y ago> your grandparents probably read for entertainment instead of tiktok It's not trivial to say that our grandparents read more than us. Paper books, newspapers and magazines are less common but we have ebooks, substacks and online newspapers now. > your grandparents were more physically active Perhaps at work, but my access to exercise during leisure time is much greater. > your grandparents didn't eat ultra processed food because it hadn't been invented yet I don't have hard data on this, but I think it's fair to say their generation's overall exposure to toxins was much greater. DEET, smoking, leaded petrol, asbestos and coal power stations seem much worse than the occasional McFlurry.
- hiddenfinance 1y ago>I don't have hard data on this, but I think it's fair to say their generation's overall exposure to toxins was much greater. DEET, smoking, leaded petrol, asbestos and coal power stations seem much worse than the occasional McFlurry. Don't forget petro wast such as plastic. It is amazing that we are still a live.
- Flemlo 1y agoYou can actually have dementia without the symptoms if your interconnect is strong. Like knowing multiple languages/ multiple words for one thing.
- WesternWind 1y agoI read today that people who are now 50-75 years old were at the peak of exposure to leaded gasoline fumes. It's pretty well established that greater lead exposure leads to increased risk of cognitive decline. I'm not saying that's all of it, but it seems like it could be as much of a factor as anything.
- anovikov 1y agoIt will be a major oops moment when we will find out that dementia is caused by some weird kind of bacterial or prion infection. And the whole moral explanation of it ("go read your damn books and talk to smart people or you will get Alzheimers!") will turn out to be same bullshit as moralistic obesity explanations ("just lazy and can't control yourself!") recently turned out to be. One big thing that changed in these decades is cleanliness simply due to better cleaning chemicals. Which certainly caused a reduction of infections of all kinds.
- anticrymactic 1y ago> turn out to be same bullshit as moralistic obesity explanations ("just lazy and can't control yourself!") recently turned out to be. Any reading on that?
- pjc50 1y agoHave you heard of Ozempic?
- lm28469 1y agoOzempic takes your willpower out of the equation so I'd say it puts a lot of people into the low self control category... I know people who've been obese all their lives and lost massive amount of weight once they were properly explained stuff like calories, glycemic index, excercise... I wish I was joking but some people out there are not even aware that food is supposed to be fuel for the body, not just something that you take when you're bored or because it tastes good and make you feel happy.
- Nasrudith 1y agoReminds me of one funny probably-not-taken-very-seriously historian theory about Alzheimer's - that air pollution was responsible for its existence and the few natural sources were rare enough that there weren't any 'got Alzheimer's by spending too much time by an erupting volcano' cases. The main reason being the lack of pre-industrial accounts of anybody being old enough to show memory issues. It isn't strong proof by any other means. The bias of the accounts excluding it would sort of be like concluding that acne wasn't an issue because painted portraits of teens excluded them. I don't know if this theory is true but it is certainly an interesting one.
- _alternator_ 1y agoIs it the shingles vaccine? Studies suggest that one vaccine reduces the incidence of dementia by ~20%, for reasons still unknown. https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/03/shingles-vaccination-dementia.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/03/shingles-vacc...
- smallmouth 1y agoWill they abstain from taking statins?