Breathing polluted air has been linked to an increased risk for dementia, underscoring the need for stricter air quality measures to prevent conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.
Chronic exposure to air containing high levels of fine particles was consistently associated with dementia, according to researchers at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health who conducted an analysis of 14 earlier studies. Even when the average annual levels of particles were below a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standard — 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air — the relationship with dementia persisted.
Some 57 million people worldwide have dementia, and there’s no cure for patients, including those with Alzheimer’s disease. Even a reduction in annual levels of just 2 micrograms per cubic meter should lead to lower dementia rates, said Marc Weisskopf, a professor of environmental epidemiology and physiology at Harvard who helped write the study published Wednesday in the BMJ medical journal.