
Brain pollution: Evidence builds that dirty air causes Alzheimer’s, dementia - dsr12
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/brain-pollution-evidence-builds-dirty-air-causes-alzheimer-s-dementia
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MickerNews
If this were true we'd expect to see a simple and repeatable observation of
decreased Alzheimer's along rural and urban lines. People in the centre of
London would be far more likely to develop dementia or Alzheimer's than those
living on the Atlantic coast of Ireland. This is not the case.

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orf
How many people live in the center of London city? Not many. ~12,000 very
wealthy rich people last time I looked.

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solveit
I don't think they were talking about the City. They're talking about Greater
London.

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at-fates-hands
My professor in college was the first of a group of researchers who discovered
a genetic marker for Alzheimer's:

Pioneer Families Key In Alzheimer’s Find Research Traced Several Generations
Of Volga German Families, Including Two From Eastern Washington:

[http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/aug/18/pioneer-
familie...](http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/aug/18/pioneer-families-key-
in-alzheimers-find-research/)

 _In reports published today in the journal Science, researchers say they have
isolated a defective Alzheimer’s gene culled from an 8-year-long investigation
of several Volga German families, including two from Eastern Washington.
Discovery of the gene, and a protein it produces, could speed development of
drugs to combat the brain-destroying disorder._

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Mc_Big_G
Maybe, but my grandmother had Alzheimer's and lived in the country all her
life and the air was extremely clean. However, her well water was disgustingly
polluted with metals. I remember that she would wrap a giant wad of paper
towels around her faucet and secure it with a rubber band as a poor man's
filter. In a very short time the once white towels would be a dark rust color.
I've been thinking for years that this might be the root cause of her
condition. Surprisingly, her body was strong right up until her death. It
actually seemed like a bit of a curse that her body forced her to continue
living with a brain with a short-term memory of a minute or two. In any case,
I seriously doubt the root cause for her was the air she was breathing.

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kevinh
The article doesn't claim that air pollution is the only cause of Alzheimer's
or dementia. They specifically state something that indicates the opposite:

> If the finding holds up in the general population, air pollution could
> account for roughly 21% of dementia cases worldwide

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Mc_Big_G
So the title should be "...causes some cases of..."

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eiieirurjdndjd
You shouldn’t read “causes” as “is the exclusive cause of” pretty much ever.

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ralphc
I assume "air pollution" would include smoking? My mother was a lifelong
smoker and developed Alzheimer's. As smokers die of old age etc. and non-
smokers age up, hopefully we can see a reduction of these cases, or at least a
reduction of the rate of increase.

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bobwaycott
The article specifically mentions being concerned by and studying air near
roadways compared to that which isn’t, as well as controlling for factors such
as smoking in study participants. It doesn’t sound like this has much to do
with smoking as air pollution.

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honkycat
This makes me very happy I moved out of a city with an air quality rating of F
to a city with an A.

Hopefully the 10 years I spent in Chicago don't come back to haunt me later in
life.

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ams6110
Since air (at least in the USA) is overall much cleaner than it was a
generation or two ago, I wonder how this squares with the seemingly increasing
trend of dementia cases. Maybe just people living longer overall, and dementia
being (usually) a disease of old age, we see more of it?

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eiieirurjdndjd
It’s probably more that people getting dementia now received damage 20-30
years ago which took time to manifest. That and varying diagnostic criteria
and other variables like fitness.

