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Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

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Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#61

Post by veritas_veritad »

core-questions wrote: post #57
veritas_veritad wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

false dichotomy- there exists a world in which cars are not the normal mode of transportation because everything you could possibly want is within walking distance and intra-city travel is something you do only occasionally.

I couldn't possibly want to leave the city, drive down a logging road, tour around, and enjoy my personal freedom, right? Why would anyone want that, when someone might possibly have a small chance of dying because of it?

it's not just the small chance of dying, though- it's the very real and cumulative effects of driving cars in general. We have laws around being able to pump raw sewage into rivers and lakes as well as laws around leaving depleted uranium anywhere remotely possible of causing harm (and even then it probably still isn't great)

You're welcome to leave the city via some means that doesn't pollute the atmosphere. Walk, bike, etc. It's really whiney of you to feel so incensed that you can't just do whatever TF you want because "mah freedoms" when those activities are contributing to a degradation of the livability of the planet.

Yes, we as a species have reached the point where there are things we _can_ do that we _ought not_ do. Sucks I guess?

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#62

Post by veritas_veritad »

Tade0 wrote: post #37
veritas_veritad wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

false dichotomy- there exists a world in which cars are not the normal mode of transportation because everything you could possibly want is within walking distance and intra-city travel is something you do only occasionally.

Does there though? I personally would be interested in living in a 1mln+ city that's 99%+ car free.

would be or would not be- I'm confused by your statement

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#63

Post by phkahler »

jeffwass wrote: post #20
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 t…

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

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#64

Post by WhompingWindows »

I went to an Alzheimer's Conference recently and there was an hour-long talk about air pollution and dementia.

1) The title of this article is bad. In epidemiologic terms, you shouldn't combine the words "seem" and "cause". Seem is about perception, is about possibility, whereas any science writer or epi researcher worth their salt is NOT going to use the term "cause" lightly. There may be an association, a correlation, a linkage even, but cause? No no, dementia is a very broad disease with many potential causes, and likely you will never establish a singular cause for that disease.

2) Regarding the talk I attended itself, there is a wildly broad definition of air pollution out there. Are you talking about ozone, NOx, or particulate matter, and what SIZE of particulate matter? How do you measure lifetime exposure or recent exposure for those moving, and for the dynamic process that is air quality? Then, how do you control for community and cultural based effects of living in certain areas - maybe those with other risk factors are also those forced by poverty/etc. to live in the polluted areas.

Summarily, IMHO, air pollution is a contributing factor to dementia, but alone I doubt it'd be sufficient without age-related degeneration, unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, stress, underlying genetics/alleles/mutations, etc. There are probably around 10-20 important factors of which air pollution is one.

As a society, let's ditch ICE vehicles, let's ditch coal and dirty industrial practices, both for our planet and for our own health.

What can you do now? Stop idling your car, use your brakes as little as possible (i.e. drive efficiently, don't speed up just to have to brake soon), don't go out in hot summer weather, support renewable energy, oppose coal/dirty diesel/inefficient fossil fuel use, and generally vote for politicians who agree with the above and don't take dirty fossil money.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#65

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

phkahler wrote: post #63
jeffwass wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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?

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#66

Post by neilv »

hourislate wrote: post #41
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…

Have you thought about setting up a cheap 20x20 box fan with a HEPA filter in your home/apartment (California Wildfire Setup), air quality can be worse inside. It may be able to create an environment where you can recover a little everyday. Here is a demonstration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A8Yink0czc I myself run one in my home but just place the filter behind and against the fan allowing the airflow to keep i…

A 20x20 fan DIY was actually on my todo list. This is the first time I've seen a box with multiple filters on it, however -- all the ones I saw before just taped a single filter to the fan. Are the multiple filters a big practical improvement?

(I used to own an expensive air filter that was top-rated by Consumer Reports at the time, but sold it during a minimalism phase. Now I want to try a filter again, this pollen season, but more frugally.)

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#67

Post by Tactic »

hattar wrote: 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.

I have noticed this phenomena a number of times. My theory is that the first article sparks people digging into the matter and related subjects further. This leads to them posting related articles. A bit of herd like mentality.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#68

Post by thaumasiotes »

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…

> 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.

I developed a persistent cough after moving from Shanghai to Santa Cruz, California, but it would be hard to blame that on air pollution.

And it turns out it was probably infection with Heliobacter Pylori.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#69

Post by artifice »

felipemnoa wrote: post #53
2Ccltvcm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should all just become vegetables plugged into the matrix so we can't possibly hurt ourselves or others. We would be valuable vassals providing energy to our overlords. I can't wait for your future.

>>providing energy to our overlords The Matrix AI robots do not really need humans to survive. They had a form of fusion. In reality the reason why they created the symbiotic relationship was as a kindness to their human supporters so that the human race would not go extinct.

The truth is that in the original imaginings of the plot to The Matrix, the artificial entities of the machine world had reversed the roles of interaction between humans and computers. It wasn't about energy at all, but about using human brains as a computational resource. They were farming the humans and enslaving them, because the machines occupied the antagonist role in the plot.

They were the villains. It's established in the animatrix set of short films, that the machines did not perceive themselves as villains, and this is a common characteristic that cuts across most tropes of villainy. During a monologue, a villain will often equivocate their motivation with that of the hero. (you and me? we're really the same...)

Focus groups and producers interfered with that aspect of the plot (the grid computer made of people, hence the name: The Matrix), and rewrote the story to depict the machines as using humans as an energy source, a power grid (changing puns and quips using, instead of computational terms, to energy references, such as "coppertop" and the like), which tested as a more accessible concept to the lowest common denominator in the target audience.

If you watch the supplemental material included with the trilogy boxed set, I think it's mentioned in either one of the commentaries or the documentaries and interview segments.

Re: Air Pollution Seems to Cause Dementia

#70

Post by prepend »

deevolution wrote: post #28
jodrellblank wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say the same thing about driving at all. People think it's their divine right to drive, even though driving at all reports 165,000 casualties of all levels in the UK, per year: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua... And the government does nothing. Except speed bumps, which people complain about, mandatory car maintenance, which people complain about, traffic lights everywhere, whic…

Hopefully non autonomous driving becomes illegal. Its a lethal weapon and we shouldnt be trusting humans with cars

Maybe the same law can make commenting on web sites illegals. Sitting and lethargy kill many more than driving.
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