This is an obvious third-factor for poverty and marginalization. Air pollution exposure is the most classic example of unequal protection from harm in environmental justice. Alameda county did a study on this that found as an isolated, direct-result of unequal exposure to air pollution, black people live 15 years less than white people on average in Alameda County alone.
tomrod · 12m ago
If you could see long term PM2.5 averages and how they vary, we'd approach as a national crisis.
Having done some additional follow on work in the space -- the results definitely do not follow socioeconomic boundaries as one might expect.
Roads are a huge contributor.
No comments yet
olalonde · 1h ago
I find this very hard to believe... Mind sharing that study?
Tade0 · 10m ago
Same. I hail from a particularly polluted (compared to the rest of the EU) country, so PM2.5 over 80µg/m3 during the entire heating season, NOx constantly above 50µg/m3 in cities due to old diesels with anti-pollution devices turned off or removed entirely and the overall effect is said to be a 3-6 years shorter life expectancy.
It checks out compared to countries without these issues, so 15 years to me sounds exaggerated, especially if we're talking about areas close to each other.
Such a huge shortening normally involves heavy metal pollution of the drinking water and soil.
On the other hand life expectancy of richest people in US is on par with poorest in EU.
(Poverty is still factor within those regions).
sebmellen · 6m ago
This is simply not true, at least if you consider all of Europe.
unsupp0rted · 5m ago
> Dementias such as Alzheimer's disease are estimated to affect more than 57.4 million people worldwide, a number that is expected to almost triple to 152.8 million cases by 2050
Meaningless number. Make it % or incidence rate per 1000 or something.
57 million people? That’s not so many compared to the billion in China or India. Or is it? Compare it to cancers or car accidents.
lemonberry · 3h ago
As the sole caregiver for a father with dementia I can tell you it's a nightmare.
If you have children please, please plan for late life care. And if you're going to be caring for either of your parents start planning and build a support network. By the time I knew I needed help I was drowning. Learn how to ask for help. I thought I was a relatively progressive 50 year old man, but it turns out help is a 4-letter word.
d4mi3n · 2h ago
You have my condolences. I helped my wife care for her late father with Lewy body dementia. I think many people recognize they may need to care for the people that raised them at some point, but the realities of the costs--both financially and emotionally--are rarely discussed. @lemonberry feel free to reach out if you need a friendly ear, my email is in my profile.
On a personal note to anyone in this situation: Do not go it alone. Being a caregiver is hard, but being a caregiver for someone with serious memory issues is brutal and requires 24/7 monitoring. Your loved one will not always cooperate. They may change into someone who does not resemble the person you knew. Many states require such persons to be homed somewhere with a 24/7 nursing staff. Plan accordingly.
saltcured · 2h ago
My sympathies.
As hard as it is, supporting family members also need to learn to prioritize taking care of themselves and avoiding a spiral towards burnout. With dementia, there is often a time when the patient needs a more controlled environment with 24x7 supervision. Dementia sleep schedules and behaviors fall apart and are not really compatible with a family caregiver's own health needs.
Depending on the dementia case, risky behaviors may emerge at night, and having observant caregivers awake 24x7 may be very important. The financial picture for this is quite difficult in the US. Normally this requires a care facility at some point, as it is impossibly expensive to bring sufficient dementia care via visiting professionals.
To safely handle dementia with "sundowning" and wandering behaviors, you usually need a facility that has about a dozen residents or more. Then, budgets allow for multiple onsite staff and overnight wakeful staff. This can bring more distinct staff roles too, e.g. cooking and housekeeping versus care.
Even this may be overwhelmingly costly, to the point where the dementia ends up depleting the estate and then shifting to some kind of government support. For family or trustees managing this process, it is full of difficult decisions regarding budget and care tradeoffs. For example, do you splurge on "nicer" facilities or other caregiver factors early on, or try to reserve more funds for the inevitable crises? Dementia can be a drawn-out process, where care needs expand to a crescendo before collapsing back to hospice care, which may be more like other terminal illnesses.
lemonberry · 17m ago
Thank you. All of this is absolutely true. Thankfully, there has been no risky behavior. However, as soon as that is the case I have some pretty big decisions to make.
Thank you! People are always telling me about organizations that can help, but honestly, I waffle between tunnel vision and absolute overwhelm. It makes acting on suggestions very difficult.
ashleyn · 2h ago
One major reason I'm working extra years despite being FI is so I have money to provide for memory care for my parents if they end up needing that. They have downright nothing to their name and memory care can easily run into half a million dollars total.
hodgehog11 · 4h ago
Given that recent Nature paper which claims that a lithium depletion could be responsible for Alzheimer's disease, is there any mechanism that could link increased air pollution to a reduction in lithium levels?
AnthonBerg · 2h ago
The two have been posited:
Lithium can be viewed an antioxidant – correctly or not?, I do not know.
Air pollution can be viewed as oxidative stress.
It’s interesting to search Google Scholar for “lithium antioxidant”.
cluckindan · 3h ago
Exposure to another similar metal could in theory displace lithium in biological processes.
(this is why it is so important to electrify trucks and to disallow industrial and commercial parks with lots of truck traffic near residential and school areas; all of this combustion/fossil energy pollution is creating health debt that will catch up with us)
CalRobert · 3h ago
Nice to know I've got bits of tire in my brain.
cluckindan · 37m ago
And a credit card.
pacifika · 4h ago
Proves ULEZ is the right call.
echelon_musk · 3h ago
I wish all diesels could be included in the ULEZ ban. Or at minimum all non commercial diesel engines.
As a motorbike rider I can taste the diesel fumes as soon as I'm behind one in a way that's unlike any petrol car.
There's large particulates being thrown out by even the most luxurious diesel cars that you simply couldn't tell if you're behind in a car.
0x1ceb00da · 3h ago
Current AQI in london ULEZ is 48 according to google maps which is not that good. Does that mean AQI is not a very good measure of air quality?
daemonologist · 1h ago
48 is decent - at the high end of the "good" range - but AQI fluctuates a lot from day to day. There were some fires on the other side of the continent from me and that was enough to bump the AQI here above 80.
Here's a report with some longer term trends (warning: 2MB PDF download): https://www.london.gov.uk/media/105046/download . Air pollution is down across London, and sharply so on the most proximate roadside sensors.
CJefferson · 2h ago
I don't know the current average, but it used to often be much higher than that. Maybe the average has improved?
cinntaile · 3h ago
It doesn't really make sense what you're saying. First you say it's not good but then you question the index. You're clearly using the AQI to base your opinion on?
To answer the ULEZ question you should compare to not having ULEZ there, which is what the GP was talking about.
0x1ceb00da · 2h ago
Right so london aqi used to be much worse but ULEZ helped.
knowitnone2 · 3h ago
well, long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution already shortens their lifespan so they won't even live long enough to reach the average age for dementia
boothby · 54m ago
That's an egregious abuse of statistics. It seems entirely implausible that the age of dementia onset would not move in parallel with lifespan.
sillyfluke · 3h ago
Well, the Yuramal in Colombia are the people that hold the record for the most Alzeihmer cases because many possess the gene for early onset and exhibit the diseases at 40 year of age. So for them the age is quite young. This goes to show that currently the record is held by genetic factors and not environmental factors.
But they also show that it instead of eliminating the root cause of the disease, the solution might be eliminating its symptoms instead. Cause one woman who had the gene defied all odds and exhibited the symptom of the disease in her 70s. The reasoning is that another gene she had, the Christchurch gene, protected her brain from the disease. So if someone can use that info to prevent symptoms of the disease eliminating the root cause would become secondary.
jt2190 · 3h ago
> ... defied all odds and exhibited the symptom of the disease in her 70s.
I assume you mean: "exhibited no symptoms of the disease until her 70s".
Other than luck, did they have any idea why she was able to resist the disease for so long?
bethekidyouwant · 2h ago
For a brief fleeting moment, man was not plagued by indoor air pollution nor outdoor air pollution
smokel · 2h ago
That was before the invention of fire? I think we had even worse problems back then.
OJFord · 2h ago
I think they mean with mains gas able to replace wood and coal fires, but before significant use of internal combustion engine vehicles.
roywiggins · 1h ago
Lighting before/during gaslight was in some ways worse than that, people routinely lit their homes and workplaces with nasty lamp fuels. You could either burn turpentine (which was smokey) or turpentine and alcohol (which wasn't, but was volatile and prone to exploding and setting people on fire).
People probably just didn’t live as long back then and so dementia didn’t have time to surface. Or it did but people lived in tight knit small groups and managed it.
ath3nd · 1h ago
Just so we are clear, are you denying that air pollution plays a role in developing dementia?
api · 1h ago
No, agreeing that it may have been worse when people slept with camp fires in tents but that we may not have noticed due to shorter life spans.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266601722... (this groups methods can be substantially improved).
Having done some additional follow on work in the space -- the results definitely do not follow socioeconomic boundaries as one might expect.
Roads are a huge contributor.
No comments yet
It checks out compared to countries without these issues, so 15 years to me sounds exaggerated, especially if we're talking about areas close to each other.
Such a huge shortening normally involves heavy metal pollution of the drinking water and soil.
Meaningless number. Make it % or incidence rate per 1000 or something.
57 million people? That’s not so many compared to the billion in China or India. Or is it? Compare it to cancers or car accidents.
If you have children please, please plan for late life care. And if you're going to be caring for either of your parents start planning and build a support network. By the time I knew I needed help I was drowning. Learn how to ask for help. I thought I was a relatively progressive 50 year old man, but it turns out help is a 4-letter word.
On a personal note to anyone in this situation: Do not go it alone. Being a caregiver is hard, but being a caregiver for someone with serious memory issues is brutal and requires 24/7 monitoring. Your loved one will not always cooperate. They may change into someone who does not resemble the person you knew. Many states require such persons to be homed somewhere with a 24/7 nursing staff. Plan accordingly.
As hard as it is, supporting family members also need to learn to prioritize taking care of themselves and avoiding a spiral towards burnout. With dementia, there is often a time when the patient needs a more controlled environment with 24x7 supervision. Dementia sleep schedules and behaviors fall apart and are not really compatible with a family caregiver's own health needs.
Depending on the dementia case, risky behaviors may emerge at night, and having observant caregivers awake 24x7 may be very important. The financial picture for this is quite difficult in the US. Normally this requires a care facility at some point, as it is impossibly expensive to bring sufficient dementia care via visiting professionals.
To safely handle dementia with "sundowning" and wandering behaviors, you usually need a facility that has about a dozen residents or more. Then, budgets allow for multiple onsite staff and overnight wakeful staff. This can bring more distinct staff roles too, e.g. cooking and housekeeping versus care.
Even this may be overwhelmingly costly, to the point where the dementia ends up depleting the estate and then shifting to some kind of government support. For family or trustees managing this process, it is full of difficult decisions regarding budget and care tradeoffs. For example, do you splurge on "nicer" facilities or other caregiver factors early on, or try to reserve more funds for the inevitable crises? Dementia can be a drawn-out process, where care needs expand to a crescendo before collapsing back to hospice care, which may be more like other terminal illnesses.
Lithium can be viewed an antioxidant – correctly or not?, I do not know.
Air pollution can be viewed as oxidative stress.
It’s interesting to search Google Scholar for “lithium antioxidant”.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/07/coal-pollution-is-ki... | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393512... | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2024.118787
Warehouses:
Air pollution impacts from warehousing in the United States uncovered with satellite data - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-50000-0 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-50000-0
Where Warehouses Are Built, Air Pollution Follows - https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153471/where-wareho...
Impact of Warehouse Expansion on Ambient PM2.5 and Elemental Carbon Levels in Southern California's Disadvantaged Communities: A Two-Decade Analysis - https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GH00... | https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GH001091
Global air quality map: https://explore.openaq.org/
(this is why it is so important to electrify trucks and to disallow industrial and commercial parks with lots of truck traffic near residential and school areas; all of this combustion/fossil energy pollution is creating health debt that will catch up with us)
As a motorbike rider I can taste the diesel fumes as soon as I'm behind one in a way that's unlike any petrol car.
There's large particulates being thrown out by even the most luxurious diesel cars that you simply couldn't tell if you're behind in a car.
Here's a report with some longer term trends (warning: 2MB PDF download): https://www.london.gov.uk/media/105046/download . Air pollution is down across London, and sharply so on the most proximate roadside sensors.
But they also show that it instead of eliminating the root cause of the disease, the solution might be eliminating its symptoms instead. Cause one woman who had the gene defied all odds and exhibited the symptom of the disease in her 70s. The reasoning is that another gene she had, the Christchurch gene, protected her brain from the disease. So if someone can use that info to prevent symptoms of the disease eliminating the root cause would become secondary.
I assume you mean: "exhibited no symptoms of the disease until her 70s".
Other than luck, did they have any idea why she was able to resist the disease for so long?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camphine
Better options existed but weren't as affordable.