Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia • Hacker News Board

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#11

Post by meower » Fri, May 10, 2019, 3:28 PM UTC

siliconunit wrote: post #9

As far as anecdotes go, since I moved to London I noticed a sharp decrease in memory performance, heavy hair loss, and a general feeling of unhealthiness, developed a random persistent cough as well. The fact that you can always see a heavy haze even in short tube tunnels tells a lot on the air quality, the last underground cleaning train stopped working in the eighties...very unhealthy place to live/work in my opini…

I think you get used to it after some time, and even get, how should I formulate that, "addicted"?

I live in a heavily polluted city -- a couple of chemical plants, a coal power station, and the central heating system burning a few (dozen) tons of coal every day to combat -40°C winters. A lot of my friends/acquaintances (in fact, most of them) have moved to other cities and many of them report having trouble adjusting to less polluted atmosphere: trouble sleeping (after moving within the same timezone), constant headaches, rashes, the list goes on.

Also, you hear a lot of stories of older people (third world definition of "older", i.e. around 60), never having a single complaint about their health, moving to cleaner cities and dying in a couple of weeks of strokes and cardiac arrest.

It sounds like old wive's tale, but not when you hear it for the twentieth time from the relatives of yet another person affected.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#12

Post by arethuza » Fri, May 10, 2019, 3:33 PM UTC

siliconunit wrote: post #9

As far as anecdotes go, since I moved to London I noticed a sharp decrease in memory performance, heavy hair loss, and a general feeling of unhealthiness, developed a random persistent cough as well. The fact that you can always see a heavy haze even in short tube tunnels tells a lot on the air quality, the last underground cleaning train stopped working in the eighties...very unhealthy place to live/work in my opini…

I remember once years ago coming into Heathrow on a flight and when the flight circled over central London there was a distinct brown layer of cloud - it looked disgusting!

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#13

Post by netwanderer3 » Fri, May 10, 2019, 3:38 PM UTC

According to the evolution theory, eventually our DNA will evolve to adapt to its external environment so does this mean given enough daily exposure over many generations, at some time in a distant future our immune system will no longer consider those particles as foreign and thus will not fight to eliminate it? There would be no dementia by then if it was indeed caused by inflammation triggered by the immune system. I know this sounds pretty stupid but human bodies are weird machines still not fully understood by today science. If some people within the same race could be allergic to certain types of food that are completely safe to others without any proper explanations (eggs, peanuts, etc...) then anything is possible. I'm sure there are people out there who live to 90 without getting dementia even in heaviest polluted cities.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#14

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Fri, May 10, 2019, 3:40 PM UTC

siliconunit wrote: post #9

As far as anecdotes go, since I moved to London I noticed a sharp decrease in memory performance, heavy hair loss, and a general feeling of unhealthiness, developed a random persistent cough as well. The fact that you can always see a heavy haze even in short tube tunnels tells a lot on the air quality, the last underground cleaning train stopped working in the eighties...very unhealthy place to live/work in my opini…

> sharp decrease in memory performance, heavy hair loss, and a general feeling of unhealthiness

Are you in your thirties?

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#15

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Fri, May 10, 2019, 3:42 PM UTC

netwanderer3 wrote: post #13

According to the evolution theory, eventually our DNA will evolve to adapt to its external environment so does this mean given enough daily exposure over many generations, at some time in a distant future our immune system will no longer consider those particles as foreign and thus will not fight to eliminate it? There would be no dementia by then if it was indeed caused by inflammation triggered by the immune system…

That only presupposes that these adaptations are evolutionary beneficial to us - if we live long enough to breed and see our offspring breed, it doesn't actually matter if we develop those adaptations. Selection via ability to breed is how evolution works, and we've largely circumvented that.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#16

Post by jvanderbot » Fri, May 10, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

siliconunit wrote: post #9

As far as anecdotes go, since I moved to London I noticed a sharp decrease in memory performance, heavy hair loss, and a general feeling of unhealthiness, developed a random persistent cough as well. The fact that you can always see a heavy haze even in short tube tunnels tells a lot on the air quality, the last underground cleaning train stopped working in the eighties...very unhealthy place to live/work in my opini…

I experienced patchy hair loss after moving to Los Angeles. This "childhood disease" does not run in my family, and I've never had it before. I'm 38 and moved here two years ago.

I have come to suspect systemic inflation from the rampant pollution in LA caused my new autoimmune disease, or at worst exacerbated a condition I never experienced symptoms of before.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#17

Post by iforgotpassword » Fri, May 10, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

netwanderer3 wrote: post #13

According to the evolution theory, eventually our DNA will evolve to adapt to its external environment so does this mean given enough daily exposure over many generations, at some time in a distant future our immune system will no longer consider those particles as foreign and thus will not fight to eliminate it? There would be no dementia by then if it was indeed caused by inflammation triggered by the immune system…

Yes and no. Evolution theory would require those who get dementia to go extinct. Usually by the time you develop dementia, you already reproduced, so even if some people become "immune" to pollution, the others won't get removed from the gene pool.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#18

Post by yoz-y » Fri, May 10, 2019, 3:45 PM UTC

netwanderer3 wrote: post #13

According to the evolution theory, eventually our DNA will evolve to adapt to its external environment so does this mean given enough daily exposure over many generations, at some time in a distant future our immune system will no longer consider those particles as foreign and thus will not fight to eliminate it? There would be no dementia by then if it was indeed caused by inflammation triggered by the immune system…

As far as I understand it, evolution only really happens if the survival of the fittest principle also applies. Modern science does good job keeping people who would otherwise could not survive alive. I think that the answer to get rid of allergies will come from science rather than the natural process. (If ever)

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#19

Post by creaghpatr » Fri, May 10, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

jamescostian wrote: post #4

> Both of these studies estimated that around 6 to 7 percent of all dementia cases in their samples could be attributed to air pollution exposures Is it just me or does this seem very flimsy? Sounds like this model catches very few cases, and there is no mention in TFA of how many false positives were found. The quasi-causal study sounds a bit better, but judging by how much the article seems to have overplayed the c…

Hence the word "seems". It's like science but without the rigor.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#20

Post by jeffwass » Fri, May 10, 2019, 3:53 PM UTC

siliconunit wrote: post #9

As far as anecdotes go, since I moved to London I noticed a sharp decrease in memory performance, heavy hair loss, and a general feeling of unhealthiness, developed a random persistent cough as well. The fact that you can always see a heavy haze even in short tube tunnels tells a lot on the air quality, the last underground cleaning train stopped working in the eighties...very unhealthy place to live/work in my opini…

I’ve lived in London the past decade and had problems with air pollution (got bronchitis a number of times in the last few years).

Just today my GP suggested getting an inhaler. And I just found out a guy I work with got an inhaler last week.

It’s insane how bad the air pollution is, estimated to cause 40k premature deaths each year.

Meanwhile the government hardly does anything (though see below). People feel it’s their divine right to drive old dirty diesel vehicles and how dare the government impose any restriction on this polluting behaviour.

Luckily London just set up the ULEZ (ultra low emission zone) in a small part of central London, making older dirty cars pay a fee if they enter. But they’re not extending the ULEZ to Greater London for another two and a half years. Or another 100k premature deaths.