Given that recent Nature paper which claims that a lithium depletion could be responsible for Alzheimer's disease, is there any mechanism that could link increased air pollution to a reduction in lithium levels?
As the sole caregiver for a father with dementia I can tell you it's a nightmare.
If you have children please, please plan for late life care. And if you're going to be caring for either of your parents start planning and build a support network. By the time I knew I needed help I was drowning. Learn how to ask for help. I thought I was a relatively progressive 50 year old man, but it turns out help is a 4-letter word.
Your advice about planning ahead is gold.... by the time the crisis point comes, you're usually too exhausted to build that support system from scratch
well, long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution already shortens their lifespan so they won't even live long enough to reach the average age for dementia
This is an obvious third-factor for poverty and marginalization. Air pollution exposure is the most classic example of unequal protection from harm in environmental justice. Alameda county did a study on this that found as an isolated, direct-result of unequal exposure to air pollution, black people live 15 years less than white people on average in Alameda County alone.
> Dementias such as Alzheimer's disease are estimated to affect more than 57.4 million people worldwide, a number that is expected to almost triple to 152.8 million cases by 2050
Meaningless number. Make it % or incidence rate per 1000 or something.
57 million people? That’s not so many compared to the billion in China or India. Or is it? Compare it to cancers or car accidents.
What’s important to understand is that PM2.5 is not PM2.5.
It only defines the diameter of the particles but can be composed of very different elements. From salt that dissolves in the lungs to toxic metals.
Currently it is extremely difficult to get a comprehensive understanding of the health impacts of these particles.
Much more research needs to be done to understand which particle compositions and thus what sources of air pollution (eg traffic, wildfires, factories, landfills, ports etc) have what kind of health effects.
If you are interested to see an image how different PM2.5 particle look like, have a look at the photo in this blog post that one of our in-house scientists wrote [1].
Thanks. Unrelated, but this is the first time I grasped why electron microscopes are needed and not just some fancy tech:
> 0.3 micrometers are even smaller than the wavelength of light, which demonstrates the problem: how should we see something that is smaller than light itself?
Recently started looking at daycares in San Diego. All the good ones near me are within a couple hundred feet of a major freeway. I can't believe people send their kids to something like that.
Intuitively, I don't mind the ones 0.5 mi away from the freeway, especially if the prevailing winds place them up-wind. I have no idea if that's correct, but it seems to me that you'd have a fairly fast drop-off in noxious substances as you move away from the freeway.
We also have this recent trend of building huge apartment complexes right next to the freeways while many of the nicer areas are given to commercial and industrial uses. Makes no sense to me.
crbox just build boat loads of them? everywhere you're going to spend more than reasonable amount of time is worth it. filters aren't expensive, it's either they suck it or our lung suck it the rest are just talk
What's frustrating is that we already have decades of knowledge on how to cut NO2 and soot from transport and energy, but politics moves at a glacial pace while the damage accumulates
I was expecting lead to be called out. I didn't go deeper than the article, but assuming the studies mentioned had a higher average age since they were studying dementia, many of them likely grew up around cars burning leaded gasoline.
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[ 0.33 ms ] story [ 58.9 ms ] threadIf you have children please, please plan for late life care. And if you're going to be caring for either of your parents start planning and build a support network. By the time I knew I needed help I was drowning. Learn how to ask for help. I thought I was a relatively progressive 50 year old man, but it turns out help is a 4-letter word.
Meaningless number. Make it % or incidence rate per 1000 or something.
57 million people? That’s not so many compared to the billion in China or India. Or is it? Compare it to cancers or car accidents.
It only defines the diameter of the particles but can be composed of very different elements. From salt that dissolves in the lungs to toxic metals.
Currently it is extremely difficult to get a comprehensive understanding of the health impacts of these particles.
Much more research needs to be done to understand which particle compositions and thus what sources of air pollution (eg traffic, wildfires, factories, landfills, ports etc) have what kind of health effects.
If you are interested to see an image how different PM2.5 particle look like, have a look at the photo in this blog post that one of our in-house scientists wrote [1].
[1] https://www.airgradient.com/blog/pm25-is-not-pm25/
(Edited and replaced weight with diameter)
> 0.3 micrometers are even smaller than the wavelength of light, which demonstrates the problem: how should we see something that is smaller than light itself?
IKEA has recently released a decent air filter for ~$40.
Good ones cost a bit more, but even the basic one removes plenty of small particles with an HEPA-like stage.
Intuitively, I don't mind the ones 0.5 mi away from the freeway, especially if the prevailing winds place them up-wind. I have no idea if that's correct, but it seems to me that you'd have a fairly fast drop-off in noxious substances as you move away from the freeway.
We also have this recent trend of building huge apartment complexes right next to the freeways while many of the nicer areas are given to commercial and industrial uses. Makes no sense to me.
Nobody thinks about the quality of their air until it's been hurting them.
I was one of many.