I wonder if forest firefighters have increased dementia.
Air pollution directly linked to increased dementia risk
101–110 of 138 posts
Re: Air pollution directly linked to increased dementia risk
#102I'd like to know the effects of air pollution on at risk populations that use inhalable drugs or smoke as well. I believe the results would be much worse. Potentially related https://m.slashdot.org/story/446420 EDIT commenting to child so as not to start a flame war. Lung scarring, emphasema, bronchial illness and so forth can cause the lungs to trap particulates in the lungs longer than they should over the long ter…
That does not make any sense to me. Now [inhalable] drug users and smokers are "at risk populations" and it's not the drug use or the direct inhaling of smoke, soot, and ash…usually without filtration…that is the issue and problem, but the air pollution is the thing they need to worry about? But maybe you will be happy to hear that the rates of pollution in the whole European civilization block are orders of magnitud…
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Re: Air pollution directly linked to increased dementia risk
#103This article repeats the common mistake of conflating correlations and causality. The main results are (1) that PM2.5 exposure is correlated with dementia in humans, (2) some experimental results with mice. This does not establish causality in humans. The paper is careful to stay juuuust on the right side of the line by carefully using "associated" in the right places. But the press release discards that pretense at…
Why is this brought up here every time an association article is mentioned, every undergraduate that took a statistics course has covered the difference between correlation and causation. We do population level correlation studies because sometimes a double blind study is unethical, and double blind studies is the bar for establishing causation in the medical community. We cannot give one person randomly worse air to…
> This isn’t a controversial result in the literature, it’s more evidence for what we already know —- air pollution is very bad.
It is certainly controversial for individuals whose way of life (see non-electric car-centric society) is being questioned by this science. Just look at some of the cynic answers in this thread pretending that air pollution is not bad
Re: Air pollution directly linked to increased dementia risk
#104Re: Air pollution directly linked to increased dementia risk
#105This article repeats the common mistake of conflating correlations and causality. The main results are (1) that PM2.5 exposure is correlated with dementia in humans, (2) some experimental results with mice. This does not establish causality in humans. The paper is careful to stay juuuust on the right side of the line by carefully using "associated" in the right places. But the press release discards that pretense at…
Oh yeah, sure definitely it's just as likely that people predisposed to dementia move to places with high air pollution...
You’re being sarcastically dismissive, but this is a real possibility. The real world is complicated and disorders with environmental effects are often multi-factorial.
Air pollution might not be the direct cause, it might be a proxy measurement that is correlated with some other factor or factors that contribute to dementia risk. For example, do areas with higher air pollution measurements also have higher or lower rates of something else that is actually contributing to the dementia directly? Do they simply correlate with overall development of the area, and therefore areas with poor pollution numbers also have high levels of water pollution?
Re: Air pollution directly linked to increased dementia risk
#106This article repeats the common mistake of conflating correlations and causality. The main results are (1) that PM2.5 exposure is correlated with dementia in humans, (2) some experimental results with mice. This does not establish causality in humans. The paper is careful to stay juuuust on the right side of the line by carefully using "associated" in the right places. But the press release discards that pretense at…
Oh yeah, sure definitely it's just as likely that people predisposed to dementia move to places with high air pollution...
People who are poorer and have worse health are predisposed to live in cheaper dwellings, many of which are closer to roads and thus more noisy and with more air pollution.
People who are poorer and have worse health, also have an increased incidence of dementia, seemingly independently of the number of particles in their dwellings.
Re: Air pollution directly linked to increased dementia risk
#107Dementia rates in Miami Dade are among the highest in the country while Utah is on the low end. What is striking is that Utah has worse air quality, which is a known risk factor, yet still shows lower prevalence. Why is that?
There are obviously lots more factors affecting dementia than air quality. Also Utah has worse air quality than Miami? Where in Utah? My trips to Utah I remember pristine air but of course I didn’t have an air monitor on board other than my nose. Edit: Oh I see >Utah, particularly in urban areas like the Wasatch Front, frequently experiences worse air quality than Miami. Utah's air quality issues are often caused by…
And probably getting far more use of wood burners in areas like the Wasatch Front than Miami.
Re: Air pollution directly linked to increased dementia risk
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. It also reduces the world's dependence on unstable regions. However, some things that are regarded as renewable (e.g. wood burning, such as the notorious Drax power station in the UK) are more polluting than fossil fuels. Personally I doubt they are even effective at CO₂ reduction. What we need is clean energy.
> It also reduces the world's dependence on unstable regions. Do you think the world might have made these regions unstable because they have the oil?
Norway and Botswana are good counterpoints here.
I think its more about the fact that resource-rich countries naturally have a way for elites to stay in power longer than those without simply because they have enough money to go around to appease the populace they control. (An interesting test of this thesis would be how long Putin can stay in power now that they have to partially ration fuel due to Ukrainian refinery strikes)
Re: Air pollution directly linked to increased dementia risk
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh yeah, sure definitely it's just as likely that people predisposed to dementia move to places with high air pollution...
Well, in some cases we know that they do. Dementia is linked to diabetes. And diabetes risk is increased for African-Americans. And African-Americans live in high-pollution urban areas for entirely historical reasons. So some amount of the causation here does go in the way opposite to what a person might naively suspect.
Outlive (book) talks extensively about dementia risk and Alzheimer's as "type 3 diabetes".
Re: Air pollution directly linked to increased dementia risk
#110I've heard the argument made that it's better to stop burning fossil fuel, even if you're a climate change denier for reasons like this. Even if you think climate change is a hoax, why not reduce pollution anyway?
I agree. It also reduces the world's dependence on unstable regions. However, some things that are regarded as renewable (e.g. wood burning, such as the notorious Drax power station in the UK) are more polluting than fossil fuels. Personally I doubt they are even effective at CO₂ reduction. What we need is clean energy.
At least with Drax the combustion is managed by professionals, can have treatment to remove some emissions, and shoots the pollution high into the atmosphere. Its probably safer to live near Drax than a village full of recreational wood burners.