Air pollution linked to dementia and cardiovascular disease:
The number of people living with dementia is projected to triple in the next 30 years. No curative treatment has been identified and the search for modifiable risk and protective factors remains a public health priority. Recent studies have linked both cardiovascular disease and air pollution to the development of dementia, but findings on the air pollution-link have been scarce and inconsistent.
In this study, the researchers examined the link between long-term exposure to air pollution and dementia and what role cardiovascular diseases play in that association. Almost 3,000 adults with an average age of 74 and living in the Kungsholmen district in central Stockholm were followed for up to 11 years. Of those, 364 people developed dementia. The annual average level of particulate matter 2.5 microns or less in width (PM2.5) are considered low compared to international standards.
"Interestingly, we were able to establish harmful effects on human health at levels below current air pollution standards," says first author Giulia Grande, researcher at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society at Karolinska Institutet. "Our findings suggest air pollution does play a role in the development of dementia, and mainly through the intermediate step of cardiovascular disease and especially stroke."
Journal Reference:
Giulia Grande, Petter L. S. Ljungman, Kristina Eneroth, Tom Bellander, Debora Rizzuto. Association Between Cardiovascular Disease and Long-term Exposure to Air Pollution With the Risk of Dementia. JAMA Neurology, 2020; DOI: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2019.4914
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday March 31 2020, @10:22PM
Uh-huh. But throwing "racist!" around at every occasion, every place, constantly, at everyone, doesn't dismiss legitimate concerns or observations at all. It's only the baddies who dismiss what the wholesome goodies say, and never the other way around.
We could suppose, as a thought experiment, that we lock everyone away in a glass pod forever, to keep them safe. Somebody suggests we might want to leave the pod every once in a while when it's a fine day with blues skies and sunshine. But of the 7 billion people on Earth doing that, two get stung by bees and die of anaphylactic shock, so now we cry, "Oh the Humanity! Why, Good Christ, would anyone ever want to leave their pod?!!! The sick, sick, evil men who suggested we leave our pods should be burned, BURNED, I say!"
It's a ridiculous example, but meant to underscore a serious point that everything in life has a cost-benefit analysis, and just because somebody else calculated it differently than we did doesn't mean either party is necessarily right or wrong. So it is with regulations.
Washington DC delenda est.