There are around 50k public air quality sensors globally that publish pm2.5 measurements. Still, there are no good air quality forecasts. In my two home cities (Dublin and Stockholm), there are 30-50 public sensors.
The first exercise in my O'Reilly book (released next month) is to build a pm25 forecast using basic ML (features are weather and lagged air quality). Code is available here:
This article repeats the common mistake of conflating correlations and causality. The main results are (1) that PM2.5 exposure is correlated with dementia in humans, (2) some experimental results with mice. This does not establish causality in humans. The paper is careful to stay juuuust on the right side of the line by carefully using "associated" in the right places. But the press release discards that pretense at rigor and jumps straight to full-on claims of causality in people:
> Long-term exposure accelerates the development of Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease with dementia in people who are predisposed to the conditions.
I think it's entirely possible (perhaps even likely) that this is true. But the paper does not show it.
Avshalom · 2h ago
Oh yeah, sure definitely it's just as likely that people predisposed to dementia move to places with high air pollution...
Aurornis · 1h ago
You’re being sarcastically dismissive, but this is a real possibility. The real world is complicated and disorders with environmental effects are often multi-factorial.
Air pollution might not be the direct cause, it might be a proxy measurement that is correlated with some other factor or factors that contribute to dementia risk. For example, do areas with higher air pollution measurements also have higher or lower rates of something else that is actually contributing to the dementia directly? Do they simply correlate with overall development of the area, and therefore areas with poor pollution numbers also have high levels of water pollution?
saltcured · 1h ago
It's even worse... dementia sufferers are the ones emitting these particles ;-)
tylerflick · 1h ago
Thanks, got a good laugh out of this one.
lentil_soup · 2h ago
Probably not that, but it could be something else that also correlates with pollution like living in big cities, or working in a factory, walking more/less, noise levels, lifestyle, etc
romaaeterna · 2h ago
Well, in some cases we know that they do.
Dementia is linked to diabetes. And diabetes risk is increased for African-Americans. And African-Americans live in high-pollution urban areas for entirely historical reasons.
So some amount of the causation here does go in the way opposite to what a person might naively suspect.
JumpCrisscross · 1h ago
> Dementia is linked to diabetes. And diabetes risk is increased for African-Americans. And African-Americans live in high-pollution urban areas for entirely historical reasons
A is correlated with B. B is causally correlated with C, i.e. C causes B. (C is correlated with D.) Hence C causes A.
Let’s replace. Flowers are correlated with bees. Bees are caused by hives. (Hives are correlated with trees.) Hence, hives cause flowers.
Loosely, yes. Formally, no.
romaaeterna · 1h ago
We know that diabetes causes some amount of dementia and that flowers cause no amount of bees. And so on. Your example is specious, and obviously so.
jvanderbot · 1h ago
Outlive (book) talks extensively about dementia risk and Alzheimer's as "type 3 diabetes".
zosima · 1h ago
People who are poorer and have worse health are predisposed to live in cheaper dwellings, many of which are closer to roads and thus more noisy and with more air pollution.
People who are poorer and have worse health, also have an increased incidence of dementia, seemingly independently of the number of particles in their dwellings.
Insanity · 1h ago
I’m not sure this is a completely valid statement. Take Ontario - the most expensive places to live are in Toronto with the most traffic, the cheapest places are more rural without that heavy traffic and thus less pollution.
jvanderbot · 1h ago
In rural areas it's pesticides. And in urban areas it's dry cleaners and air pollution. Parkinson's Plan is worth a read for the kind of details you can't get on a single article
badpun · 1h ago
There might be some hidden variable at play that's correlated both air pollution that is really causing the dementia. Like street noise. Not saying it's likely, but it's not impossible.
euroderf · 2h ago
Another Red state theory about Blue cities ?
jvanderbot · 1h ago
The Parkinson's Plan talks extensively about the risk factors associated with the disease, and discussed the link between air pollution and the disease. They say that it is a trigger / cause that only sometimes works for reasons unknown (paraphrasing). Is a "sometimes cause" still causal?
goalieca · 3h ago
The maps in the article wasn’t even super clear when you inspect it visually. Didn’t read the study but it can’t be that strongly correlated.
hn_throwaway_99 · 3h ago
I was going to say something similar. Obviously I was just taking a visual look and not doing any rigorous analysis, but California certainly sticks out like a sore thumb. It has many areas in the Central Valley and Southern California with very high PM2.5 levels, but no "purple" areas with high dementia levels in the state. I also just read the article and not the study but I'd hope they give an explanation for that glaring outlier.
I'd be interested to compare the disease map with a map of average income, because at first glance the disease data looks to be correlated with wealth, and we already have tons of research that shows that wealth is one of the biggest determinants of health outcomes in the US.
selimthegrim · 1h ago
New Orleans is another one.
mikeiz404 · 2h ago
I noticed this too. I do wonder what it would look like if you controlled for relocation (moving to another region and then developing symptoms), disease onset (both maps are for the same time ranges), and the types of pm 2.5 exposure.
npunt · 20m ago
(OP makes a good point, just going on a slight tangent here)
We really need a term that sits between correlation and causation in situations where data is difficult to come by. There's such a huge rift of meaning between these terms, and too often 'correlation is not causation' gets wheeled out in a room of people that already know that and are trying to figure out the nuances.
How about plausal? Aka it's rather plausible that there is a causal relationship between two things but causality is hard to prove.
"Air quality and dementia have a plausal relationship".
The bar for plausation is much lower, yet many correlates still won't meet it. "Bad air quality causes dementia" is a categorically different statement than "ice cream sales cause shark attacks", if we establish the category of plausal relationships.
mikeiz404 · 2h ago
It is unfortunate that the title and subheading of the article use a causal phrasing. Fortunately the body of the article does maintain the correct distinction.
bitmasher9 · 3h ago
Why is this brought up here every time an association article is mentioned, every undergraduate that took a statistics course has covered the difference between correlation and causation.
We do population level correlation studies because sometimes a double blind study is unethical, and double blind studies is the bar for establishing causation in the medical community. We cannot give one person randomly worse air to breath, and even if it were experimentally feasible it would be ethically impossible because there is strong suspicion we would be harming the subjects.
Let’s discuss the actual data. The dose dependent result that was found is an indicator of a strong relationship. There is a clear potential mechanism of action (Air -> Lungs -> Bloodstream -> Brain). This isn’t a controversial result in the literature, it’s more evidence for what we already know —- air pollution is very bad.
dynm · 3h ago
You seem to be responding as if I claimed that population-level correlational studies are bad, or that I claimed that air pollution is not bad for you. But I did not claim either of those things.
What I claimed is that this press release takes a population-level correlational study and presents it in a misleading way that implies causation was established. Which this press release most certainly does.
bitmasher9 · 2h ago
The correlation != causation argument at large is usually a sophomoric dismal of valuable data, and I’d rather see discussion on the data or specifics to research methodology then this meta criticism.
Ultimately both exaggerating pop-sci articles and dismissive comments are contributing to public distrust of science.
dpkirchner · 2h ago
Maybe the thought-terminating cliche should be posted as a comment by a bot at the top of every submission so there's a home for this sort of complaint.
bossyTeacher · 1h ago
> This isn’t a controversial result in the literature, it’s more evidence for what we already know —- air pollution is very bad.
It is certainly controversial for individuals whose way of life (see non-electric car-centric society) is being questioned by this science. Just look at some of the cynic answers in this thread pretending that air pollution is not bad
dropacid · 2h ago
Another fossil fuel shill
saddat · 47m ago
So … Beijing , Mumbai or Uulanbaatar habitants will face grim future ? Idk there are cities with decades of terrible air with PM25 way above 200 , but I never hear of such drastic developments ?
firesteelrain · 5h ago
Dementia rates in Miami Dade are among the highest in the country while Utah is on the low end. What is striking is that Utah has worse air quality, which is a known risk factor, yet still shows lower prevalence.
Why is that?
chongli · 4h ago
Gotta control for age. Even if air pollution is a major cause of dementia, the disease takes decades to appear.
Utah has the highest birth rate and therefore the youngest population of the 50 states (median age 31.5 years). Florida is not the oldest state, but it's near the top (median age 42.7 years).
biophysboy · 2h ago
Dementia by state comparisons that look at prevalence above age 65 give the conclusion for Utah & Florida
Aurornis · 1h ago
Dementia isn’t caused by one single factor, as far as we know.
Studies like this show that air quality is correlated with dementia in general, but we don’t know if that means air quality directly contributes to dementia or if air quality just happens to be correlated with something else that contributes to dementia.
As for Utah: They have lower rates of drinking and drug use and higher levels of physical fitness and outdoor activity, among other factors.
Utah’s average air quality also isn’t as bad as you hear about. The mountain geography can trap pollution on certain winter days, but the average air quality in Salt Lake City is surprisingly better than most metro areas with 500K or more people: https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/03/26/air-qu...
> In 2023, Salt Lake had the 11th-lowest average particulate matter levels, known as PM2.5, of 103 cities reviewed by IQAir, a Swiss air quality technology company.
AvAn12 · 4h ago
Also need to adjust for moving. A lot of people retire to Florida but would have accumulated exposures in wherever they lived most of their working life.
dragonwriter · 2h ago
Because where people live in retirement doesn’t always reflect where they lived while gathering exposure, and particularly Florida is a place that attracts retirees and perhaps most especially retirees with respiratory health issues (which, like dementia, are influenced by air quality they qere exposee to over their earlier life.)
That's strange, because the dementia mortality rate is high...
Mistletoe · 4h ago
There are obviously lots more factors affecting dementia than air quality.
Also Utah has worse air quality than Miami? Where in Utah? My trips to Utah I remember pristine air but of course I didn’t have an air monitor on board other than my nose.
Edit: Oh I see
>Utah, particularly in urban areas like the Wasatch Front, frequently experiences worse air quality than Miami.
Utah's air quality issues are often caused by unique geographical and meteorological conditions. In winter, temperature inversions trap cold, polluted air in the valleys, leading to high levels of particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution. In the summer, heat and sunlight can create high levels of ground-level ozone. The American Lung Association has ranked cities in the Salt Lake City-Provo-Orem area among the worst for ozone and short-term particle pollution.
>In contrast, Miami's air quality is generally "Good" throughout the year, with occasional exceptions. The primary pollutants are also PM2.5 and ozone, but the geographical and weather conditions do not contribute to the same level of pollutant trapping as in Utah. The city has programs in place for air quality monitoring and standards.
gausswho · 3h ago
Salt Lake is a ticking time bomb as it evaporates and exposes heavy metals downwind to major population centers.
7952 · 1h ago
And probably getting far more use of wood burners in areas like the Wasatch Front than Miami.
sleepyguy · 4h ago
Perhaps there are more elderly people in Miami-Dade.
What we should be asking is why aren't countries like China, India, and a lot of others in Asia suffering catastrophic rates of Dementia?
firesteelrain · 4h ago
Good point. If air quality is a risk factor then how much?
idiotsecant · 4h ago
China's population skew heavily to middle age, whereas the US population pyramid is more like a population rectangle. It's entirely possible that they have an epidemic of dementia, but for a combination of social and demographic reasons that doesn't show in the data. Getting honest health data out of China, for example, is going to be pretty difficult.
My sorrow and sadness from being in a place where I can't walk to go do things is substantially worse than places where I can.
I can walk in cities.
No comments yet
bichiliad · 3h ago
I'd argue that's only true if you ignore loneliness in areas outside of cities. I would have a hard time living somewhere that I didn't run into people.
Only so much you can do about ambient pollution in your city.
Looking carefully at your cooking situation is worthwhile though. Was horrified by the spike in readings from stuff like steak in a pan
skybrian · 5h ago
An air purifier is pretty cheap and will cut down on indoor pollution from cooking a lot. Or at least that’s how it seemed from the somewhat unreliable sensor I was using.
FWIW, I think the wirecutter's quality for air purifiers is pretty bad, and likely more influenced by affiliate payments than science: https://dynomight.net/ikea-purifier/
thadk · 3h ago
I tried the cheap IKEA model and with my severe dust mite allergies the model was insufficient in comparison to calm my sixth sinus-bound sense.
My main suspicion: In my last 3 abodes with pre-1955 construction in East Coast, the pre-filter on the top Wirecutter pick needs to be cleaned 3x per carbon filter replacement in order to reduce largest particle accumulation on the carbon or HEPA filters.
The inexpensive IKEA model did not have a viable and easily cleaned pre filter as far as I could figure out.
J_Shelby_J · 1h ago
Just buy three for the same price as one expensive model :D
I have mine hooked up to smart outlets and particulate meter to automate them. I just wish I could control the speed.
terribleperson · 2h ago
The ikea Fornuftig has a snap-on piece of cloth covered plastic that serves as a pre-filter, a replaceable particle filter, and a replaceable optional gas filter.
I've found that taking a shop vac and leaf blower to the pre-filter works quite well to get it clean.
That said, the Ikea air purifiers only make sense if you have a room that's about the right size for the Fornuftig. Their larger purifier is worse value, and you're better off looking at something like the Squair.
FollowingTheDao · 5h ago
I am homeless, I live in a minivan, and I have a solar battery charger with a small carbon filter/HEPA air filter that I use every night and it helps me so much. I am a very "sensitive" person to many things in the environment, but many times while traveling i find myself in the midst of wildfire smoke. (I also carry a facemask respirator for the same reason).
ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 · 5h ago
Are there studies showing indoor air pollution from cooking in a residential setting is linked to dementia?
csallen · 5h ago
Study: Household fuel use and motoric cognitive risk syndrome among older adults: Evidence from cohort study and life course analysis
Conclusion: "Clean fuel use for cooking and transitioning from solid to clean fuels decreases MCRS risk among older adults. Moreover, earlier adoption of clean cooking fuels is associated with a lower prevalence of MCRS in later life..."
---
Study: Association between cooking fuels and mild cognitive impairment among older adults from six low- and middle-income countries
Conclusion: "In this large representative sample of older adults from multiple LMICs, unclean cooking fuel and a lack of chimney or hood when cooking were associated with a higher risk of MCI..."
---
Study: Household air pollution from solid fuel use as a dose-dependent risk factor for cognitive impairment in northern China
> People who use solid fuels (like wood, coal, or crop residue) for cooking or heating tend to do worse on cognitive tests compared to those who use clean fuels (like electricity or natural gas). This effect shows up across several areas of thinking, but the biggest impacts were on attention (for cooking) and orientation (for heating).
> The more often people currently use solid fuel stoves, the worse they do on attention-related tasks. For example: if someone cooks with a solid fuel stove 100 extra days in a year, their attention score drops by about 0.05 points (a small but measurable decline).
> Long-term exposure matters too. For every 5 extra years of solid fuel stove use (over the past 20 years), people scored about 0.07 points lower in attention tests. In other words: the longer you’ve been exposed, the worse your performance tends to be.
krapht · 5h ago
I've seen media reports from China about elevated lung cancer rates in non-smoking women. Just as scary, IMO. That being said, Chinese cooking makes much greater usage of stir-frying, and it's well known that most residential ventilation hoods are wholly inadequate for the task.
Havoc · 5h ago
Not sure - it may very well be a different kind of pollution, but the raw PM2.5 values definitely look scary fast with any kind of "dry" cooking where you're browning anything
jodrellblank · 5h ago
The raw PM2.5 values also skyrocket with just boiling tap water, on my Ikea Vindstyrka. Which makes me question how useful it is, presumably even with "dry" cooking a lot of meats and vegetables have water in them?
It's actually not been established (at least, to the best of my knowledge) that PM2.5 caused by water vapor is any less harmful than other types of PM2.5 particulates.
And sure, yes, it's just water and its entirely plausible that water based PM2.5 is completely harmless... but wouldn't it be good to know that for sure?
jader201 · 3h ago
Wouldn't that suggest that, at least to some degree, dementia would be elevated in humid vs. dry climates?
J_Shelby_J · 43m ago
Water particles vs water vapor
gausswho · 3h ago
Sauna ritual life would make an interesting comparison.
FollowingTheDao · 5h ago
Good question, but I will say yes just based on the science I know. The type of pollutant does not matter, it is whatever effects heat shock proteins to effect protein folding.
Heat shock proteins (and cold shock proteins) are affected by more than temperature, but temperature is really important as well.[1][2]
Well studies like this are often directed at policymakers, who actually can do something about it.
lazide · 5h ago
Policy makers generally only give a damn if someone else makes them - or they get something from it.
tim333 · 4h ago
They can do the old fashioned make things better to make the voters happy and get reelected. In London the mayor has brought in a lot of anti pollution measures and although the tabloids and right wing media go on about how awful he is, he gets reelected, including my voting.
Wouldn't we see dementia occurrence higher among cooks, then? Or do we?
phoenixhaber · 4h ago
I'd like to know the effects of air pollution on at risk populations that use inhalable drugs or smoke as well. I believe the results would be much worse.
EDIT commenting to child so as not to start a flame war. Lung scarring, emphasema, bronchial illness and so forth can cause the lungs to trap particulates in the lungs longer than they should over the long term this exacerbating health risks. It definitely makes sense.
cluckindan · 3h ago
Not all inhalable drugs are the same. Also, not all inhalations are the same.
Your idea could hold for people who smoke cigarettes or use combustion-heated pipes to consume hard drugs like meth or crack, or for people who smoke a lot of poor quality cannabis, especially without any kind of filtering.
It probably doesn’t hold for people who use a dry herb vaporizer to consume cannabis, since the method of consumption doesn’t generate PM2.5 or combustion gases, and the volatile constituents of cannabis are well established to have local and systemic anti-inflammatory effects.
hopelite · 4h ago
That does not make any sense to me. Now [inhalable] drug users and smokers are "at risk populations" and it's not the drug use or the direct inhaling of smoke, soot, and ash…usually without filtration…that is the issue and problem, but the air pollution is the thing they need to worry about?
But maybe you will be happy to hear that the rates of pollution in the whole European civilization block are orders of magnitude lower than non-European blocks[1]
I wonder if forest firefighters have increased dementia.
neom · 3h ago
Anyone knowledgable on this research area able to enlighten me on how pesticides are included (nor not) in these air particulate studies? In my head PM studies are primality focused on combusted stuff? Do pesticides factor into PM readings in a geography? I ask because I seem to recall there being some articles linking pesticides to dementia/Parkinson.
jl6 · 2h ago
Do we see reducing rates of dementia in cities like London which have dramatically improved their air quality over the last ~80 years?
it_citizen · 5h ago
What level of PM2.5 are they considering? I cannot read the full study
hopelite · 4h ago
It feels like manipulative lying to me when they show the distribution of PM2.5 in the USA through that heat map, where the scale of pollution only goes to 15 when the most non-European block countries are way higher than 15.
I've heard the argument made that it's better to stop burning fossil fuel, even if you're a climate change denier for reasons like this.
Even if you think climate change is a hoax, why not reduce pollution anyway?
Hilift · 2h ago
It is being reduced where you think it should be. There is now a more serious threat from uncontrollable methane emissions. Landfills can turn into a slushee that accelerates methane ouptput. And landfills can catch fire, such as the Chiquita Canyon landfill in Val Verde, California (90 acres). 58% of uncontrolled methane is from food decay, and is increasing.
I'm on that boat. Though no one denies that the climate changes (but rather argue the about degree of human contribution and climate warming), destroying the beauty of nature and polluting the environment should go against global human conscience.
Krssst · 2h ago
> destroying the beauty of nature and polluting the environment should go against global human conscience.
I don't think beauty has anything to do with it. Climate change has very negative concrete effects on human civilization that justify the effort we should put (but don't) into limiting it. Generally pollution is nocive to human health which is why we strive to avoid it too.
I think talking about "beauty" moves the debate away from rational arguments. The reason we do all this is to preserve a world where humans can have comfortable lives, without additional health risks adding up and with enough access to necessities (food, water, shelter, breathable air compatible with human survival (never too long above 35C wet-bulb)).
melling · 5h ago
“The climate is always changing”
Yes, those people are mostly imbeciles.
They argue that because Obama has a house near the ocean… and because people fly…
You can have a discussion with them but be prepared to start over in the same place the next time the subject comes up.
hereme888 · 4h ago
I think it's imbecile for self-righteous people to not spare a few moments of patience to politely try to correct those who were exposed to wrong information that caters to their bias. It's almost guaranteed that you also believe some sort of ridiculous conspiracy or bias, just like everyone else.
Maybe try listening to them. After all, scientists did switch from "global warming" to an unspecific term like "climate change", which gives them a reason for distrust. Same for other aspects of scientific notion, like distrust against scientists when they and politicians tried to cover up information on COVID and COVID vaccines.
melling · 4h ago
I’ve spent decades.
They’re imbeciles!
By the way, it’s still global warming but that was causing some confusion to some people because the weather locally might be cooler, warmer, wetter, dryer, etc.
Hence, climate change seems to better convey what people actually see.
Should we review what climate scientists actually said in the 1970s next?
What’s your favorite anecdotal (ie non science) story you go to?
hereme888 · 3h ago
You think 90% of the world cares to follow what scientists said in the 1970's? All they care about is "They said 'global warming', but now some news report it's actually colder, and I've heard several scientists give presentations that it's all fake and not true. They just want to push their green agenda and are part of a conspiracy to [something]. And btw the earth is actually flat. All those satellite images are CGG, says all the youtube videos I've watched. And yea, vaccines cause autism because I've read a bunch of blogs online proving it."
It's why governments try to curb online disinformation. Did you know conspiracy theories thrive among the less successful? Insulting them will only push them further away towards groups that gladly open their arms to them.
melling · 2h ago
Did you know whether you are kind or insult them, you aren’t going to change their minds? The insult tends to leave a sting, and I’ve noticed people are less likely to add their misinformation the next time.
At any rate, is there any climate change belief that you would like to discuss?
Try to stay on topic. Digression is a common tactic. People quickly like to change the subject when they run into someone who knows why they are wrong.
hereme888 · 26m ago
I thought my hinted answers were clear: the climate is always changing, hence the terminology is imprecise compared to the previous, specific "Global Warming". It fuels conspiracies. The science itself is difficult, and at times has been admittedly imprecise or biased. The overzealous politicians are given an alarmist presentation, and in turn propose exaggerated solutions that threaten current livelihoods. Instead of addressing specific points during airtime, people fall back to some imprecise political comment on the matter, itself fueling distrust because the average person, while "less educated", is still sharp.
graemep · 5h ago
I agree. It also reduces the world's dependence on unstable regions.
However, some things that are regarded as renewable (e.g. wood burning, such as the notorious Drax power station in the UK) are more polluting than fossil fuels. Personally I doubt they are even effective at CO₂ reduction. What we need is clean energy.
7952 · 1h ago
At least with Drax the combustion is managed by professionals, can have treatment to remove some emissions, and shoots the pollution high into the atmosphere. Its probably safer to live near Drax than a village full of recreational wood burners.
FollowingTheDao · 5h ago
> It also reduces the world's dependence on unstable regions.
Do you think the world might have made these regions unstable because they have the oil?
acdha · 5h ago
It’s definitely a combination of both but I think oil wealth is inherently destabilizing because it tends to be concentrated in areas which were not previously rich and densely populated (most of the world by area) and because the way the market works allows a relatively small number of people to be wealthy without much local support compared to, say, high-end manufacturing which require lots of skilled workers and local investment. Norway is basically the only example of a petrostate where the money is invested in the betterment of the entire country.
graemep · 4h ago
Yes. Not just the rest of the world wanting influence over the oil supply, resources. Natural resources have harmful effects: making currencies uncompetitive, corruption as people compete for a share of the wealth rather than creating new wealth..
Norway and Botswana are good counterpoints here.
I think its more about the fact that resource-rich countries naturally have a way for elites to stay in power longer than those without simply because they have enough money to go around to appease the populace they control. (An interesting test of this thesis would be how long Putin can stay in power now that they have to partially ration fuel due to Ukrainian refinery strikes)
lazide · 5h ago
The middle east was literally roving bands of desert Bedouins and warring religious states long before fossil oil was known to be useful, let alone of major geopolitical importance.
Have people meddled since? Of course. Such is how power works. But you'd have to go back to Roman times to find a period of stability in the middle east, and the factors that led to that have nothing to do with Oil.
globular-toast · 3h ago
The people who benefit from the status quo are also the people who have the power to change it, and they don't have to live in the polluted areas.
FollowingTheDao · 5h ago
In my opinion, the reason air pollution effects dementia risk is through activation of Heat Shock Proteins and I think it is the most valuable place to be investing in research.
Heat Shock Proteins in Alzheimer’s Disease: Role and Targeting
It seems to be multifactorial. Per an OpenEvidence query, which cites many recent studies:
"In summary, the mechanism of PM2.5-induced brain damage involves entry via the olfactory system and BBB, activation of glial cells, neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, BBB disruption, and downstream neurodegenerative changes."
FollowingTheDao · 2h ago
Heat Shock Proteins affect the function of all of those systems . Put that into OpenEvidence...
Learn about biology instead of relying on simple searches for you answers.
ck2 · 3h ago
directly related, really hoping AirGradient got their US warehouse setup before the tariff implosion blocked every other country postal deliveries
mc32 · 5h ago
Does this imply that in 30 years or more we should expect spikes in China, India and other places with exceptional air pollution?
I don't doubt it and they could expect other implications if the pollution also included heavy metals and other chemicals in the air, water and land.
elric · 5h ago
Hopefully China will improve its care of dementia patients. N=1, but a Chinese friend's mother has dementia, and basically the family is expected to care of her full time, there seem to be no facilities (at least not for regular non-rich folks), and even getting a diagnosis was apparently a very hush-hush affair. Seems like it's something that isn't talked much about over there? Again, N=1.
hollerith · 5h ago
The air pollution in China and India was already awful 30 years ago, so "spike" is not be best choice of word. "Continuation of a high level of dementia" would be better.
mc32 · 5h ago
I guess it would be a large and massive upswell in the coming decades because dementia isa trailing indicator and takes decades to have effect on populations. China only started pumping out massive amounts of dirty pollution in the mid 90's and China probably in the 2010s or so, so the impact is yet to hit them but if the conclusions are correct then wow...
hollerith · 5h ago
I remember reports of terrible air pollution in China in the 1990s. China is burning much more coal now than it did then, and has about a thousand times more cars, but since the 1990s they've also instituted controls on how much air pollution a car or a unit of coal produces.
hopelite · 4h ago
Why do they show a picture of polluted India with people wearing masks and have some kind of skin thing going on, and then go on to show a heat map of PM2.5 rates across the USA, where the most polluted areas are nowhere near as polluted as non-western cities/countries [1].
Why do we never talk about the fact that the post polluted areas are not at all in the European civilization block, i.e., they are Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Chad, and the DR of Congo. So they should also have the highest rates of dementia if this research holds, right?
This all just seems like gaslighting lies, manipulation, and abuse.
Who is to say they don't? Most of those areas have a less developed health infrastructure, so I'd expect the statistics on dementia diagnoses to systemically underreport the issue.
The average age in developing countries is also lower (due to both lower life expectancy and higher birth rate) which is a further confounding value to skew the numbers. Dementia is an old people game, even if it is true that air pollution worsens it.
flouridist · 4h ago
> This all just seems like gaslighting lies, manipulation, and abuse.
The countries you give all have less than half and usually less than a third the percentage of people over 65.
swayvil · 5h ago
Therefore city dwellers are demented and rural dwellers aren't.
(And this says nothing about the effects of noise pollution or aesthetic pollution)
EDIT
Oh come on, it's the obvious conclusion. So discuss already.
J_Shelby_J · 39m ago
It would be if it was only pollution but my understanding it’s pm2.5 in general. Rural areas can and do have high pm2.5. Look at the map. It could be agriculture or dust or flora.
plorkyeran · 3h ago
One of the surprising things about visiting the mountains to do various outdoor activities in nature is how often the air quality is worse than it is at home in an urban area. A big part of this is that "home" is the SF Bay Area and we have consistent winds blowing inland from the ocean, which blows our air pollution to other people (and the air gets noticeable worse when this doesn't happen), but also the air quality is often shockingly poor in rural areas. Wood stoves, diesel generators, and the like in spots where the pollution gets trapped can do a lot even with low density.
On average the air quality is worse in cities than in rural areas, but at least in the United States the difference is smaller than you might expect. In countries that do not take urban air pollution seriously it gets very bad, of course.
amanaplanacanal · 4h ago
It depends. Pollution can be higher in the cities, or it can be higher in areas with high wildfire risk, or it can depend on specific geography which traps polluted air. You have to look at each case individually.
For example, in my state there is a specific more rural area which has a high incidence if heating with wood stoves, and they have higher air pollution that other more urban areas.
Another possibility is that urban areas are richer on average, and therefore might have better air filtration systems in homes and businesses than poorer rural areas. You can't tell without actually gathering the data.
gausswho · 3h ago
There's a lot of interesting confounding factors from an air quality perspective wrt urban vs suburban vs rural. Leaf / lawn blowers. Driving vs walking/public transit. Ground level vs up high. Tradewinds (west coast vs east coast vs AZ dust storm / wildfires).
The first exercise in my O'Reilly book (released next month) is to build a pm25 forecast using basic ML (features are weather and lagged air quality). Code is available here:
https://github.com/featurestorebook/mlfs-book/
> Long-term exposure accelerates the development of Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease with dementia in people who are predisposed to the conditions.
I think it's entirely possible (perhaps even likely) that this is true. But the paper does not show it.
Air pollution might not be the direct cause, it might be a proxy measurement that is correlated with some other factor or factors that contribute to dementia risk. For example, do areas with higher air pollution measurements also have higher or lower rates of something else that is actually contributing to the dementia directly? Do they simply correlate with overall development of the area, and therefore areas with poor pollution numbers also have high levels of water pollution?
Dementia is linked to diabetes. And diabetes risk is increased for African-Americans. And African-Americans live in high-pollution urban areas for entirely historical reasons.
So some amount of the causation here does go in the way opposite to what a person might naively suspect.
A is correlated with B. B is causally correlated with C, i.e. C causes B. (C is correlated with D.) Hence C causes A.
Let’s replace. Flowers are correlated with bees. Bees are caused by hives. (Hives are correlated with trees.) Hence, hives cause flowers.
Loosely, yes. Formally, no.
People who are poorer and have worse health, also have an increased incidence of dementia, seemingly independently of the number of particles in their dwellings.
I'd be interested to compare the disease map with a map of average income, because at first glance the disease data looks to be correlated with wealth, and we already have tons of research that shows that wealth is one of the biggest determinants of health outcomes in the US.
We really need a term that sits between correlation and causation in situations where data is difficult to come by. There's such a huge rift of meaning between these terms, and too often 'correlation is not causation' gets wheeled out in a room of people that already know that and are trying to figure out the nuances.
How about plausal? Aka it's rather plausible that there is a causal relationship between two things but causality is hard to prove.
"Air quality and dementia have a plausal relationship".
The bar for plausation is much lower, yet many correlates still won't meet it. "Bad air quality causes dementia" is a categorically different statement than "ice cream sales cause shark attacks", if we establish the category of plausal relationships.
We do population level correlation studies because sometimes a double blind study is unethical, and double blind studies is the bar for establishing causation in the medical community. We cannot give one person randomly worse air to breath, and even if it were experimentally feasible it would be ethically impossible because there is strong suspicion we would be harming the subjects.
Let’s discuss the actual data. The dose dependent result that was found is an indicator of a strong relationship. There is a clear potential mechanism of action (Air -> Lungs -> Bloodstream -> Brain). This isn’t a controversial result in the literature, it’s more evidence for what we already know —- air pollution is very bad.
What I claimed is that this press release takes a population-level correlational study and presents it in a misleading way that implies causation was established. Which this press release most certainly does.
Ultimately both exaggerating pop-sci articles and dismissive comments are contributing to public distrust of science.
It is certainly controversial for individuals whose way of life (see non-electric car-centric society) is being questioned by this science. Just look at some of the cynic answers in this thread pretending that air pollution is not bad
Why is that?
Utah has the highest birth rate and therefore the youngest population of the 50 states (median age 31.5 years). Florida is not the oldest state, but it's near the top (median age 42.7 years).
Studies like this show that air quality is correlated with dementia in general, but we don’t know if that means air quality directly contributes to dementia or if air quality just happens to be correlated with something else that contributes to dementia.
As for Utah: They have lower rates of drinking and drug use and higher levels of physical fitness and outdoor activity, among other factors.
Utah’s average air quality also isn’t as bad as you hear about. The mountain geography can trap pollution on certain winter days, but the average air quality in Salt Lake City is surprisingly better than most metro areas with 500K or more people: https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/03/26/air-qu...
> In 2023, Salt Lake had the 11th-lowest average particulate matter levels, known as PM2.5, of 103 cities reviewed by IQAir, a Swiss air quality technology company.
That's strange, because the dementia mortality rate is high...
Also Utah has worse air quality than Miami? Where in Utah? My trips to Utah I remember pristine air but of course I didn’t have an air monitor on board other than my nose.
Edit: Oh I see
>Utah, particularly in urban areas like the Wasatch Front, frequently experiences worse air quality than Miami. Utah's air quality issues are often caused by unique geographical and meteorological conditions. In winter, temperature inversions trap cold, polluted air in the valleys, leading to high levels of particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution. In the summer, heat and sunlight can create high levels of ground-level ozone. The American Lung Association has ranked cities in the Salt Lake City-Provo-Orem area among the worst for ozone and short-term particle pollution.
>In contrast, Miami's air quality is generally "Good" throughout the year, with occasional exceptions. The primary pollutants are also PM2.5 and ozone, but the geographical and weather conditions do not contribute to the same level of pollutant trapping as in Utah. The city has programs in place for air quality monitoring and standards.
What we should be asking is why aren't countries like China, India, and a lot of others in Asia suffering catastrophic rates of Dementia?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:China_population_sex_by...
https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2...
I can walk in cities.
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https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6179015/
Looking carefully at your cooking situation is worthwhile though. Was horrified by the spike in readings from stuff like steak in a pan
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-air-purifier...
My main suspicion: In my last 3 abodes with pre-1955 construction in East Coast, the pre-filter on the top Wirecutter pick needs to be cleaned 3x per carbon filter replacement in order to reduce largest particle accumulation on the carbon or HEPA filters.
The inexpensive IKEA model did not have a viable and easily cleaned pre filter as far as I could figure out.
I have mine hooked up to smart outlets and particulate meter to automate them. I just wish I could control the speed.
I've found that taking a shop vac and leaf blower to the pre-filter works quite well to get it clean.
That said, the Ikea air purifiers only make sense if you have a room that's about the right size for the Fornuftig. Their larger purifier is worse value, and you're better off looking at something like the Squair.
Link: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12413735/
Conclusion: "Clean fuel use for cooking and transitioning from solid to clean fuels decreases MCRS risk among older adults. Moreover, earlier adoption of clean cooking fuels is associated with a lower prevalence of MCRS in later life..."
---
Study: Association between cooking fuels and mild cognitive impairment among older adults from six low- and middle-income countries
Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-17216-w
Conclusion: "In this large representative sample of older adults from multiple LMICs, unclean cooking fuel and a lack of chimney or hood when cooking were associated with a higher risk of MCI..."
---
Study: Household air pollution from solid fuel use as a dose-dependent risk factor for cognitive impairment in northern China
Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10074-6
Conclusions (summarized by ChatGPT):
> People who use solid fuels (like wood, coal, or crop residue) for cooking or heating tend to do worse on cognitive tests compared to those who use clean fuels (like electricity or natural gas). This effect shows up across several areas of thinking, but the biggest impacts were on attention (for cooking) and orientation (for heating).
> The more often people currently use solid fuel stoves, the worse they do on attention-related tasks. For example: if someone cooks with a solid fuel stove 100 extra days in a year, their attention score drops by about 0.05 points (a small but measurable decline).
> Long-term exposure matters too. For every 5 extra years of solid fuel stove use (over the past 20 years), people scored about 0.07 points lower in attention tests. In other words: the longer you’ve been exposed, the worse your performance tends to be.
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/vindstyrka-air-quality-sensor-s...
And sure, yes, it's just water and its entirely plausible that water based PM2.5 is completely harmless... but wouldn't it be good to know that for sure?
Heat shock proteins (and cold shock proteins) are affected by more than temperature, but temperature is really important as well.[1][2]
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21848409/ [2] https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/article/80/4/glae...
This thing says roadside ppm2.5 is down from 17 to 8 in central where I live https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/07/london-a...
Big spikes in soft money group spending in 22 and 24 elections...
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?cycle=2024&ind=...
Potentially related
https://m.slashdot.org/story/446420
EDIT commenting to child so as not to start a flame war. Lung scarring, emphasema, bronchial illness and so forth can cause the lungs to trap particulates in the lungs longer than they should over the long term this exacerbating health risks. It definitely makes sense.
Your idea could hold for people who smoke cigarettes or use combustion-heated pipes to consume hard drugs like meth or crack, or for people who smoke a lot of poor quality cannabis, especially without any kind of filtering.
It probably doesn’t hold for people who use a dry herb vaporizer to consume cannabis, since the method of consumption doesn’t generate PM2.5 or combustion gases, and the volatile constituents of cannabis are well established to have local and systemic anti-inflammatory effects.
But maybe you will be happy to hear that the rates of pollution in the whole European civilization block are orders of magnitude lower than non-European blocks[1]
[1] https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-air-pollution-l...
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[1] https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-air-pollution-l... polluted place
Even if you think climate change is a hoax, why not reduce pollution anyway?
https://www.epa.gov/land-research/quantifying-methane-emissi...
Quantifying methane emissions from United States landfills https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi7735
I don't think beauty has anything to do with it. Climate change has very negative concrete effects on human civilization that justify the effort we should put (but don't) into limiting it. Generally pollution is nocive to human health which is why we strive to avoid it too.
I think talking about "beauty" moves the debate away from rational arguments. The reason we do all this is to preserve a world where humans can have comfortable lives, without additional health risks adding up and with enough access to necessities (food, water, shelter, breathable air compatible with human survival (never too long above 35C wet-bulb)).
Yes, those people are mostly imbeciles.
They argue that because Obama has a house near the ocean… and because people fly…
You can have a discussion with them but be prepared to start over in the same place the next time the subject comes up.
Maybe try listening to them. After all, scientists did switch from "global warming" to an unspecific term like "climate change", which gives them a reason for distrust. Same for other aspects of scientific notion, like distrust against scientists when they and politicians tried to cover up information on COVID and COVID vaccines.
They’re imbeciles!
By the way, it’s still global warming but that was causing some confusion to some people because the weather locally might be cooler, warmer, wetter, dryer, etc.
Hence, climate change seems to better convey what people actually see.
Should we review what climate scientists actually said in the 1970s next?
What’s your favorite anecdotal (ie non science) story you go to?
It's why governments try to curb online disinformation. Did you know conspiracy theories thrive among the less successful? Insulting them will only push them further away towards groups that gladly open their arms to them.
At any rate, is there any climate change belief that you would like to discuss?
Try to stay on topic. Digression is a common tactic. People quickly like to change the subject when they run into someone who knows why they are wrong.
However, some things that are regarded as renewable (e.g. wood burning, such as the notorious Drax power station in the UK) are more polluting than fossil fuels. Personally I doubt they are even effective at CO₂ reduction. What we need is clean energy.
Do you think the world might have made these regions unstable because they have the oil?
https://moneyterms.co.uk/dutch-disease/
Have people meddled since? Of course. Such is how power works. But you'd have to go back to Roman times to find a period of stability in the middle east, and the factors that led to that have nothing to do with Oil.
Heat Shock Proteins in Alzheimer’s Disease: Role and Targeting
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6163571/
"In summary, the mechanism of PM2.5-induced brain damage involves entry via the olfactory system and BBB, activation of glial cells, neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, BBB disruption, and downstream neurodegenerative changes."
Learn about biology instead of relying on simple searches for you answers.
I don't doubt it and they could expect other implications if the pollution also included heavy metals and other chemicals in the air, water and land.
Why do we never talk about the fact that the post polluted areas are not at all in the European civilization block, i.e., they are Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Chad, and the DR of Congo. So they should also have the highest rates of dementia if this research holds, right?
This all just seems like gaslighting lies, manipulation, and abuse.
[1] https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-air-pollution-l...
The average age in developing countries is also lower (due to both lower life expectancy and higher birth rate) which is a further confounding value to skew the numbers. Dementia is an old people game, even if it is true that air pollution worsens it.
The countries you give all have less than half and usually less than a third the percentage of people over 65.
(And this says nothing about the effects of noise pollution or aesthetic pollution)
EDIT
Oh come on, it's the obvious conclusion. So discuss already.
On average the air quality is worse in cities than in rural areas, but at least in the United States the difference is smaller than you might expect. In countries that do not take urban air pollution seriously it gets very bad, of course.
For example, in my state there is a specific more rural area which has a high incidence if heating with wood stoves, and they have higher air pollution that other more urban areas.
Another possibility is that urban areas are richer on average, and therefore might have better air filtration systems in homes and businesses than poorer rural areas. You can't tell without actually gathering the data.
No comments yet