The air quality and physical health benefits of decreasing pollution have been known for decades. But scientists are now finding even more positive effects from declining pollution rates, specifically as it pertains to one major issue— dementia.
A recent international study published in Scientific Reports investigated whether greenness influences the association between particulate matter (PM) with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) and ozone, and whether this relationship affects the disease tree that includes Alzheimer's and additional forms of dementia. Spoiler alert: the results were very positive.
"The findings here showed a positive association between annual average concentrations of PM2.5 and ozone exposure and the incidence, deaths, and DALYs of AD and other dementias," read the conclusion of the study's write-up, published on News-Medical.Net.
"A greener environment could mitigate this association, particularly at moderate-to-high greenness levels. Therefore, increasing green space worldwide would positively impact health, although the protective effects of greenness may not increase linearly at the highest levels of vegetation."
Pollution negatively impacting things like air quality and human respiratory health is kind of self-evident and wasn't ever surprising. But finding conclusive evidence of its effect on long-term neurodegenerative diseases is noteworthy and may potentially even provide a window into combating that famously hard-to-understand kind of illness.
The stakes of this finding couldn't be much higher. An American Lung Association analysis found that as many as one in three people in the U.S. is breathing unhealthy air, while the World Health Organization contends that nine out of 10 people globally breathe polluted air.
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Meanwhile, in 2021, 57 million people had dementia worldwide, over 60% of whom live in low-and middle-income countries, and nearly 10 million new cases are diagnosed every year, per the WHO.
The United States government is arguably regressing in its efforts to combat pollution these days, but many other countries around the globe are rising to the challenge, slowly but surely reducing carbon pollution in the last few decades. The effects of such reductions will likely not be readily apparent for a long time, given that industrialization has coated the atmosphere in poisonous chemicals for over a century at this point.
But any progress is good progress, and the bigger (and quicker) a dent the world makes in cutting pollution, the more lives can be saved.
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