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Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

wired.com

71–80 of 98 posts

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For improved lung health I recommend daily magnesium (200mg+) and iodine (1mg+). Cured my asthma. No more inhalers!

Are you not worried about hypothydroism from the iodine?

http://www.thyroid.org/iodine-deficiency/

This page indicates hypothyroidism is a result of iodine deficiency, rather than excess. Hyperthyroidism may be caused by excess iodine.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#72
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not worried about hypothydroism from the iodine?

http://www.thyroid.org/iodine-deficiency/ This page indicates hypothyroidism is a result of iodine deficiency, rather than excess. Hyperthyroidism may be caused by excess iodine.

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/02/...

It can be both. Also, too much iodine can cause thyroid inflammation and cancer.

https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Iodine-Consumer/

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#73
post #2

What is going on with all the air pollution articles hitting HN this week? This is the 4th(?) I’ve seen in about 3 days. Any tech topic and I might not think about it, but air purification doesn’t really seem to be the kind of topic I’d expect to see so much here.

Can't speak for anyone else, but I cared about pollution as theory for decades. Even as a child when I had to wait near the idling busses I could sense an innate revulsion at whatever I was inhaling.

Maybe what's happening is that after an unfortunately long delay, society is finally coming around to a long overdue conclusion. Some phenomena seem to flip from "absurd" to "obvious" very quickly (gay-marriage, marijuana) once they get a certain critical mass.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For improved lung health I recommend daily magnesium (200mg+) and iodine (1mg+). Cured my asthma. No more inhalers!

Are you not worried about hypothydroism from the iodine?

Do you not eat salt?

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#75

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.

Where in LA do you live? LAX spews pollution due east all summer, and south all winter when the winds switch. The valleys get terrible pollution from agriculture as well.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#76
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not worried about hypothydroism from the iodine?

Do you not eat salt?

There are 45 μg / gram of salt. That means if you consume the recommended amount (1.5-2.3 grams a day) you're getting 1/10 of the supplement dose indicated above. Even a famously salty big mac would get you 100 μg of iodine.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#77

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!

Fun fact: London fog doesn't exist. It's always been pollution, not a weather phenomenon.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

A feature of modern cities? As a child I'd very rarely join my father on his commute into Manhattan from southern Brooklyn. When the car topped a ridge about halfway there the island appeared to be perfectly capped by some futuristic but dirty thick brown dome.

When you were a child environmental protections were not nearly what they are today

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is an interesting angle. Next generation will pretty much be exposed to pollution by the moment they're born. Technically their kids will inherit a slightly mutated version already even though it might not yet be enough. Does our gene "remember" how much exposure it had accumulated from the previous generation? We often hear from the news how they found some individuals who were immune to certain diseases due to…

Transgenerational inheritance is what this is technically called, and is a contentious topic about whether or not it exists in humans and to what degree. There's been studies from people who's grandparents have gone through famine and those grandchildren tend to be shorter or leaner than those who haven't, but AFAIK these are just associations and nothing causal has been found in humans to suggest what happens to you might affect your grandchildren. That being said, being exposed to pollution is not going to be great for your sperm or eggs.

And I know you are worried about what the next generation breathes, but consider that what you were exposed to was much worse, and what your parents were exposed to was worse still, and if your grandparents lived in cities they experienced awful pollution, second only to perhaps what your great grandparents may have been exposed to during the industrial revolution. Air quality has gotten better than it was in 1980 and much better than 1880, but there is still a long way to go to reset the damage of rampant consumer culture on our environment and health.

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