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There may be a direct link between car exhaust and dementia. It shows a unique new Swedish study Daily News has had access.
– We have been able to see the unexpectedly strong connection, says Bertil Forsberg, professor of environmental medicine, who led the study.
There may be a direct link between car exhaust and dementia. It shows a unique new Swedish study Daily News has had access.
– We have been able to see the unexpectedly strong connection, says Bertil Forsberg, professor of environmental medicine, who led the study.
To the dirty air can make us sick is nothing new for researchers. It is known that air pollution can cause asthma, cancer and heart disease. A unique Swedish study reveals now the link between air pollution and dementia.
A group of scientists at Umeå University have concluded that individuals who live on the streets with much exhaust gas at a higher risk developing dementia diseases Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia than those who live in places where the air is cleaner.
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Bertil Forsberg, professor of environmental medicine at Umeå University and has led the study published in the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives. He calls the result of sensational.
– We can show that those who had a high gas content in the home have a significantly increased risk of developing dementia. In total, 16 percent of all dementia cases
Scientists have for a 15-year period, followed nearly 2,000 Umeå residents. The participants, who initially showed no signs of memory problems, were given every five years to undergo a memory study. Meanwhile, estimated the researchers presence of exhaust outside their homes, including by estimating the number of cars and trucks that passed in the residential area and by measuring the levels of air pollution.
When the researchers then compared the air quality of the participants performed the memory tests and their medical record data, they have seen a clear pattern.
– After the account has been taken of other factors – such as age, education level, body mass index and various lifestyle factors – we have seen a 40 percent higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s or vascular dementia to the quarter of the participants who had the highest emission levels at the dwellings compared to the quarter with the lowest, says Bertil Forsberg.
More than 300 of the nearly 2,000 participants during the period onset any diseases.
Umeå is one of the Swedish cities where air quality in the city’s central areas was worse than the European limit values for nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter allows. Meanwhile, the air in the city’s outskirts very clean, making the differences between the participants become clear.
– We have divided Umeå in a grid of fifty times fifty meters, and calculated the concentration of exhaust fumes in each small area. In this way we have been able to write each housing a certain level of exhaust gases and to what degree the individuals who lived just where has been exposed to exhaust fumes, he said.
It is known that people who often live in environments with polluted air are at greater risk of chronic illnesses such as asthma, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. But it is only in recent years that a number of international research groups have begun to take an interest in how air pollution affects brain function.
For example, a US study revealed that elderly people living in environments with excessive exhaust fumes get a poor blood circulation in the brain, associated with the development of dementia. In addition, a variety of animal studies have shown that air pollution causes brain damage.
– We know that very small particles can take via the olfactory nerve to the brain and cause direct harm. Exhaust has also been shown to cause inflammation that affects both the respiratory tract and other organs, which among other things affects the blood circulation in the brain, says Bertil Forsberg.
Researchers at Umeå University calls for more studies on the same subject and points out that other factors linked to traffic can interact with dementia, such as traffic noise.
Miia Kivipelto Professor in clinical geriatric epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute and one of Sweden’s foremost memory researchers. She believes that we will see more of this kind of research to come.
– The research has been largely focused on demonstrating the relationship between biological factors and lifestyle factors and the development of dementia. But we know that pollution is linked to other chronic diseases such as asthma, cancer and heart disease, which in turn is often linked to memory problems. There has been much harder to measure air pollution important than looking at how specific lifestyle factors affect the individual. So this is very interesting, she says.
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