Living under thin -powered skies of fine dust even for a year worsens the accumulation of neurotoxic proteins in the brains with Alzheimer’s.
Breathing very polluted air even for a year for a year visibly worsens the course of Alzheimer’s disease in people who have already had a diagnosis of dementia. The thin powders present in the smog and capable of creeping into the blood circulation accelerate the accumulation of neurotoxic proteins in the brain and aggravate the typical symptoms of the pathology, such as memory loss.
Research published in Jama Neurology sheds light on the role of pollution not only in raising the risk of dementia, but also in moving Alzheimer’s disease where already present.
A question of environmental justice
Even if the choices of personal life in terms of nutrition, care of social relationships, physical activity and attention to smoke and alcohol can help prevent dementia, it is good to remember that some environmental factors, such as the possibility of breathing clean air, do not depend on individual responsibilities, but would be due to us by right.
Being exposed to very polluted air without the right to health in many ways: as regards dementia, science has already widely shown a link between smog and a risk increased to develop Alzheimer’s.
The new study takes one more step and reveals that patients with Alzheimer’s who live in areas where fine dust are present in major concentrations, they also have a worst course of the disease.
The geography of Alzheimer
The scientists of the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania examined the data on the brain of 602 patients with common forms of dementia or movement disorders subjected to autopsy from 1999 to 2022, kept in a bank of the fabrics of the research center on neurodegenerative diseases of the University.
Using satellite data and air quality monitoring stations, they then tried to understand the amount of fine particulate particulates (PM 2.5) breathed by patients in the areas where they had inhabited.
For each increase of a microgram per cubic meter of PM2.5, the risk of a more significant accumulation of neurotoxic proteins typical of Alzheimer’s was increased by 19%.
Silent invasion
By PM2.5 we mean that fraction of particles with a diameter of less than 2.5 thousandths of a millimeter (or micrometers, µm) entered into the atmosphere in large quantities from man’s activities (road traffic, domestic heating, industrial activities, tires and brakes …) and in part by natural phenomena.
These dust, which can have a thickness equal to half of that of a spider wire, are so thin that they insinuate themselves in the deepest part of the respiratory system, and filter from it in the blood circulation and cells.
The authors of the study found a relationship between exposure to these dust and the amount of plates based on beta-amyloid protein, deposits that alter the communication between neurons in Alzheimer’s, and of neurofibrillary tangles of Tau protein, other distinctive signs of Alzheimer’s that form inside the nerve cells.
More evident symptoms
The analysis of patient clinical folders confirmed that those who had lived in the most polluted areas and who had worse signs in the neurological level also had more serious symptoms:
A faster cognitive decline and a faster progression of memory loss, language problems, loss of ability to judge and autonomy, compared to people who had inhabited in areas with smaller concentrations of smog.
Although today there is greater attention to air quality than in past decades, this work underlines the importance of an environmental factor to which we are continually exposed for our health.
Even just a year of obliged contact with fine particulate limit levels can have an important weight on the quality of life of those who are already struggling with Alzheimer’s.