May Air Pollution Cause Alzheimer’s Disease?

Alzheimer is one of the leading factor causes dementia in elderly, and it’s a degenerative illness affects cognitive functions and even results in death (Cummings and Cole, 2002). The prevalence of Alzheimer above 65 year-olds is 3-11%, above 85 year-olds it is even 20-47% (Torun and Şalva, 2012). Therefore, it can be said that higher age is a risk factor for Alzheimer.
 
The causes of Alzheimer are always very controversial in the science. The most known reasons are aluminum, zinc, some viruses and toxins in the food. There are lots of articles finding a relationship between Alzheimer and aluminum also there are plenty of them finding no relationship. The situation with zinc is even more interesting. There are studies saying too little zinc may cause Alzheimer and others saying too much zinc may result in Alzheimer (Melinosky,2021). While all this controversies going on, a study from England find an association between Alzheimer and air pollution. In the study scientists used health data of 50-79-year-old people who’s never diagnosed with dementia before, between 2006-2010. The 1.7% of participants diagnosed with different kind of dementia including Alzheimer’s in follow-up sessions. When considering their residential location and the air pollution of that area, they found a positive association between air pollution and dementia (Carey et all.,2018).
 
REFERENCES
Carey, I. M., Anderson, H. R., Atkinson, R. W., Beevers, S. D., Cook, D. G., Strachan, D. P., ... & Kelly, F. J. (2018). Are noise and air pollution related to the incidence of dementia? A cohort study in London, England. BMJ open, 8(9), e022404.
 
Cummings JL, Cole G. Alzheimer Disease. JAMA. 2002;287(18):2335–2338. doi:10.1001/jama.287.18.2335
Melinosky, C. (2021, January 19). Controversial claims about the causes of alzheimer's disease. WebMD. Retrieved September 9, 2021, from https://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/guide/controversial-claims-risk-factors.
 
Torun, S. D., & Şalva, T. (2012). Alzheimer Hastalığının Sosyoekonomik Yükü [The Socioeconomic Burden of Alzheimer’s Disease]. Türkiye Klinikleri Journal of Neurology Special Topics, 5(3), 94-96.