Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have been studying the effects of pollution on brains for more than twenty years. Among other things, they perform autopsies on the brains of people with dementia. What they learned was that people who had been exposed to air pollution were more likely to have Alzheimer’s disease than those who did not. As Dr. Edward Lee, who directs the brain bank, concludes, “The quality of the air you live in affects your cognition.”
For example, an 83-year-old man who died with dementia had lived
near a freeway. At autopsy, his brain showed large amounts of the plaques and
tangles associated with Alzheimer’s disease. In contrast, an 84-year-old woman,
who died of brain cancer, lived in an area surrounded by woods. As one of the
researchers attested, her brain autopsy showed that she had “barely any Alzheimer’s
pathology. We had tested her year after year and she had no cognitive issues at
all.”
Because of their different home locations, the amount of air
pollution that the woman was exposed to was less than half that of the man’s
exposure. Increasing evidence is showing that chronic exposure to fine
particulate matter—called PM2.5 (it has a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less)—is
likely associated with dementia. It’s a neurotoxin that can be inhaled deeply
into the lungs. It not only affects brains, but it also damages lungs and
hearts.
Sources of PM2.5 include vehicle emissions, industrial activities, wildfires, and household activities, such as cooking and burning candles.
We’ve been cooking with our gas (propane) stove for decades. No wonder
I’m having memory problems! All this time I’d been thinking it was just old
age.
For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.
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