Three studies published this week found that people exposed to pollutants have a higher risk of stroke, heart attacks and cognitive deterioration.
One study in particular by Jennifer Weuve at Rush University Medical Center examined fine PM and cognition in older women.
Dr. Weuve’s research followed 19,409 women in the United States between the ages of 70 and 81 for about a decade, looking at changes in cognition every two years. Declines in memory and executive function, including the ability to plan and make or carry out a strategy, are normal as people get older. But the study showed that women with higher levels of long-term exposure to air pollution had “significantly” faster declines in cognition than those with less exposure to pollutants.
This is a fascinating finding and has not been particularly well-studied in the past with respect to air pollution exposure. Although it needs to be replicated in future studies, this adds an interesting piece to the puzzle of how ambient air pollution affects human health overall.
“Cognitively speaking, this higher exposure is as if you had aged an extra two years,” said Dr. Weuve, an assistant professor at the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. That might not sound like much, she added, but if there were a treatment “that could just delay the onset of dementia by two years, that would spare the population millions of cases of disease over the next 40 years.”
