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COMMENT PAGE FOR:
Long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution linked to increased risk of demen…
DANmode wrote 12 hours 12 min ago:
ChangeTheAirFoundation.org claims 50% of US residences have problems
causing this, and worse.
Nobody thinks about the quality of their air until it's been hurting
them.
I was one of many.
_heimdall wrote 12 hours 25 min ago:
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.
lerp-io wrote 12 hours 56 min ago:
alzheimer's, parkinson's, dementia, diabetes...all metabolic diseases
caused by insulin
KolibriFly wrote 13 hours 7 min ago:
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
joshuamoyers wrote 23 hours 37 min ago:
Meanwhile, current administration gutting the clean air act:
[1]: https://www.npr.org/2025/07/29/nx-s1-5463771/epa-greenhouse-ga...
alliao wrote 1 day ago:
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
swayvil wrote 1 day ago:
This would suggest that a city is a hive of insanity. The bigger the
crazier.
monster_truck wrote 1 day ago:
It's only been what, 20 years since we've been able to remove the lead
from avgas and haven't?
zzo38computer wrote 1 day ago:
What I have been told (by a airplane pilot) is that it takes a long
time to distribute the unleaded fuel to the airports.
nickff wrote 1 day ago:
This was the case until recently, but I believe the FAA (and some but
not all other regulators) has now approved a one-to-one unleaded
option (which was created some time ago, and took a long time to
approve,) and it is being adopted.
01100011 wrote 1 day ago:
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.
bravesoul2 wrote 15 hours 34 min ago:
How does a freeway compare to a lower speed but busy road?
scubadude wrote 13 hours 16 min ago:
There's a study from Stanford showing the dropoff based on road
traffic volume. The house I tested is 40 metres from a 30,000
cars/day road (2 lanes in each direction). The study suggests that
the pm2.5 drops to the equivalent of the ambient air quality of the
surrounding area at 37m away. An air quality sensor showed great
AQI and no changes during rush hours.
hombre_fatal wrote 13 hours 34 min ago:
That’s a good question when it comes to pollution but man, the
constant whine of wheels on a freeway drives me insane.
8s2ngy wrote 1 day ago:
What can I do to minimize the effects of air pollution if I have to
live in a city with high pollution levels? It seems completely out of
my control.
cluckindan wrote 16 hours 40 min ago:
Wear a respirator.
nextos wrote 23 hours 46 min ago:
Mask outdoors when its particularly bad, and use an air filter
indoors.
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.
5pl1n73r wrote 1 day ago:
Don't go outside. Move only in cars. To be honest, going outside
sucks in most cities.
aziaziazi wrote 1 day ago:
In Paris a study showed +3 years of life expectancy for cyclists
and +2 for public transport users, compared to car commuters. They
correlated it with (not a surprise) the benefits of exercice. Sure
the pollution effect is worse outside of your car but the gains of
daily light exercise offsets the drawbacks of air pollution.
5pl1n73r wrote 11 hours 13 min ago:
You can exercise in doors though
emrehan wrote 8 hours 19 min ago:
It’s not exercise, but NEAT (non-exercise activity
thermogenesis).
nerevarthelame wrote 1 day ago:
The air in a car comes from the outside.
lurk2 wrote 1 day ago:
It passes through a filter.
kibwen wrote 9 hours 45 min ago:
Cars have basic filters, but it's not common for them to come
with HEPA filters off the lot.
ahaucnx wrote 1 day ago:
You can use an air purifier. The Hepa filters are effective in
eliminating PM. Gases like NO2 and VOCs can be reduced with carbon
filters. Make sure that your carbon filter is large and different get
saturated too quickly.
alfor wrote 1 day ago:
Get a cheap air filter at Ikea, or in a pinch a box fan with a HVAC
filter taped to it.
ahaucnx wrote 1 day ago:
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] [1]
(Edited and replaced weight with diameter)
[1]: https://www.airgradient.com/blog/pm25-is-not-pm25/
KolibriFly wrote 13 hours 5 min ago:
I've also seen studies where the toxicity per microgram varied hugely
depending on whether the source was traffic, coal, or biomass burning
pa7ch wrote 8 hours 40 min ago:
Which source was worse?
makeitdouble wrote 20 hours 23 min ago:
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?
HSO wrote 1 day ago:
very interesting article, thanks for posting
echelon wrote 1 day ago:
If I had to place bets, it would be reactive species. PAHs, alcohols,
and other volatiles.
giantg2 wrote 1 day ago:
Even VOC is still an open question. Are great smelling food,
onions, etc bad for our lungs?
dragonwriter wrote 1 day ago:
> It only defines the weight of the particles
Diameter, not weight. PM2.5 is particles of diameter 2.5μm or less.
washadjeffmad wrote 1 day ago:
You're both right enough. Aerodynamic diameter doesn't measure the
particles themselves, but how their settling velocity compares to a
spherical reference ideal of a certain density (1g/cm*3) in a
medium.
I don't deal with gas cleaning, but at those scales, if you work a
lot with applied processes like filtration and separation, you can
ballpark things like daltons with mass and size. I know I do with
MWCOs.
ahaucnx wrote 1 day ago:
Yes of course! Thanks for pointing it out. I corrected the above.
unsupp0rted wrote 1 day ago:
> 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.
sgustard wrote 1 day ago:
The increase is almost entirely due to aging population.
"The Lancet study indicates that although the total number of
dementia cases is expected to increase substantially, the percentage
of the global population affected, once age-adjusted, remains nearly
constant, with just a 0.1% change globally between 2019 and 2050"
craftkiller wrote 1 day ago:
> Make it % or incidence rate per 1000 or something.
Just type it into a calculator. The computer will do all the work.
Current world population is ~8 billion so 57_000_000 / 8_000_000_000
= 0.007125
So 0.7% or 7 per 1000 people.
echelon wrote 1 day ago:
Dementia is a disease that mostly effects elderly patients, so make
the denominator the number of people in the 65-100 age group.
Roughly 10% of the world population, or 800 million, fall within
this age group.
57_000_000 / 800_000_000 ~= 7%
That's quite a large number of people who will be impacted.
> a number that is expected to almost triple to 152.8 million cases
by 2050
I don't have the statistics for the elderly population in 2050, but
if we assume the proportion is the same (it won't be), then the
higher incidence case rate is sobering.
It's nearly 20%.
cjtrowbridge wrote 1 day ago:
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.
KolibriFly wrote 13 hours 4 min ago:
Yeah, that tracks with a lot of the environmental justice research
rr808 wrote 1 day ago:
Literally the poor people in London lived in the East End because it
was downwind.
bravesoul2 wrote 15 hours 35 min ago:
London has one-way wind?
nosianu wrote 13 hours 15 min ago:
Prevailing wind directions are common though? Coriolis effect and
earth rotation and continuously moving energy source in the sky
and all that. [1] That's why we learned to look at on wich side
of the trees the moss grows to find the compass directions.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevailing_winds
nullnix wrote 14 hours 55 min ago:
Yes. Marine environment: the wind blows largely off the Atlantic,
across the whole UK.
tomrod wrote 1 day ago:
If you could see long term PM2.5 averages and how they vary, we'd
approach as a national crisis. [1] (this groups methods can be
substantially improved).
Having done some additional follow on work in the space -- the
results definitely do not follow socioeconomic boundaries as one
might expect.
Roads are a huge contributor.
[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266601722...
phatskat wrote 6 hours 41 min ago:
Roads being a huge factor also plays into socioeconomic factors
though, at least in some places. Take New York City for example,
where the off-ramps for highways were purposefully planned to let
traffic out in larger numbers in impoverished areas to keep the
noise and pollution minimal for the more affluent burrows.
tomrod wrote 15 min ago:
Absolutely. Though, do note that, at least in the US, road
network locations change slower than gentrification changes a
neighborhoods socioeconomics.
timeon wrote 1 day ago:
On the other hand life expectancy of richest people in US is on par
with poorest in EU.
(Poverty is still factor within those regions).
inglor_cz wrote 15 hours 40 min ago:
I don't believe this, show me your stats. The poorest region is
Bulgaria, with life expectancy of 75. Just looking at the American
Congress (which isn't even composed of the richest people), few
people there die at mere 75 years of age.
Also, here in the EU, life expectancy varies a lot. Interestingly,
not-so-rich countries such as Italy and Spain win over richer
Austria, Germany and Denmark by a year or so.
timeon wrote 4 hours 15 min ago:
I was wrong about EU in general. It was about poorest in western
Europe.
[1]: https://www.brown.edu/news/2025-04-02/wealth-mortality-g...
rwyinuse wrote 9 hours 6 min ago:
Diet is most likely a big factor. Despite being less rich, Italy
and Spain have decent healthcare systems, and traditionally
Mediterranean diets tend to include more vegetables and less
saturated fats than cuisines in those Northern countries, and
even poor people have access to those healthy options.
Aurornis wrote 1 day ago:
...in one single cohort-based study that only looked at around 10K
deaths between the United States and 16 European countries, not the
EU or all of Europe.
Life expectancy in the EU varies a lot by country. Someone born in
Sweden has a life expectancy over ten years longer than someone
born in Latvia.
That one study feels like a paper that was engineered to make
headlines and social media sound bites, not to be an accurate look
at the entire population.
timeon wrote 4 hours 19 min ago:
Do you think your comment has more value than one study?
sebmellen wrote 1 day ago:
This is simply not true, at least if you consider all of Europe.
timeon wrote 4 hours 20 min ago:
Not sure what "all of Europe" are you talking about when I was
talking about EU.
sebmellen wrote 4 hours 1 min ago:
Even if you average across the whole EU, this is not true.
Western and Northern EU countries are the exception to the
rule.
olalonde wrote 1 day ago:
I find this very hard to believe... Mind sharing that study?
makeitdouble wrote 20 hours 10 min ago:
That sounds incredibly obvious on the face of it though ?
Having the study at hand is nice of course, but environnemental
factors being alleviated through money and discriminatory policies
is rampant enough I don't get the surprise.
People using high quality water filters or straight buy clean water
tanks in areas where tap water is bad, getting better indoor air
filtering, blocking construction of pollution sources to move them
further away (near poorer areas) in the county,
redlining/manipulateing zoning rules to make it systematic etc.
It's a old as humans.
Manuel_D wrote 19 hours 40 min ago:
15 years disparity in life expectancy exclusively attributed to
air quality is not incredibly obvious. To put this in
perspective, nationwide average disparity in life expectancy is 5
years between Black and white people. Triple that amount,
exclusively attributed to air quality, is a substantial claim.
makeitdouble wrote 17 hours 5 min ago:
For an area that has well known air pollution issues it doesn't
sound far-fetched.
Comparing to the national average helps put it into perspective
but doesn't make sense as sanity check. Flynt could be a better
data point.
olalonde wrote 18 hours 37 min ago:
Exactly. Even smoking doesn't shorten life expectancy by that
much (it's 10 years).
makeitdouble wrote 16 hours 59 min ago:
Smoking is voluntary, partly self-adjusting (willingly or not
you'll reduce smoking as you get worse), composition is
regulated and that habit only starts at a later stage in
life.
None of that applies to PM2.5 kind of pollution.
dash2 wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah, I mean, how do they identify the causal effect here? It's
obviously not easy, because polluted areas are also poor areas, and
poor people live in poor areas (and have other problems).
It would be nice if the article had mentioned this issue. A
metastudy of lots of bad correlational studies is just garbage in
garbage out. So, did they address the issue?
There are ways round it, by the way. As a recent review said:
"it is unclear why federal ISAs that are the input into all
regulatory analyses tend not to incorporate the emerging body of
evidence on the effects of air pollution on health outcomes from
the economics literature despite the additional rigor imposed by
the emphasis on causal inference."
[1]: https://www.annualreviews.org/docserver/fulltext/resource/...
olalonde wrote 17 hours 45 min ago:
It's not surprising that poverty affects life expectancy but what
I find hard to believe is that poor air quality shortens life
expectancy by a full 15 years.
Tade0 wrote 1 day ago:
Same. I hail from a particularly polluted (compared to the rest of
the EU) country, so PM2.5 over 80µg/m3 during the entire heating
season, NOx constantly above 50µg/m3 in cities due to old diesels
with anti-pollution devices turned off or removed entirely and the
overall effect is said to be a 3-6 years shorter life expectancy.
It checks out compared to countries without these issues, so 15
years to me sounds exaggerated, especially if we're talking about
areas close to each other.
Such a huge shortening normally involves heavy metal pollution of
the drinking water and soil.
vallierx wrote 1 day ago:
From a quick google search I'm guessing this study:
[1]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11097628/
bethekidyouwant wrote 1 day ago:
For a brief fleeting moment, man was not plagued by indoor air
pollution nor outdoor air pollution
smokel wrote 1 day ago:
That was before the invention of fire? I think we had even worse
problems back then.
api wrote 1 day ago:
People probably just didn’t live as long back then and so
dementia didn’t have time to surface. Or it did but people lived
in tight knit small groups and managed it.
ath3nd wrote 1 day ago:
Just so we are clear, are you denying that air pollution plays a
role in developing dementia?
api wrote 1 day ago:
No, agreeing that it may have been worse when people slept with
camp fires in tents but that we may not have noticed due to
shorter life spans.
OJFord wrote 1 day ago:
I think they mean with mains gas able to replace wood and coal
fires, but before significant use of internal combustion engine
vehicles.
kibwen wrote 9 hours 43 min ago:
Gas for heating is one thing, but gas for cooking absolutely
annihilates your indoor air quality. Get an induction stove.
OJFord wrote 8 hours 11 min ago:
Compared to cooking on fire in an inglenook, or a wood-burning
stove?
roywiggins wrote 1 day ago:
Lighting before/during gaslight was in some ways worse than that,
people routinely lit their homes and workplaces with nasty lamp
fuels. You could either burn turpentine (which was smokey) or
turpentine and alcohol (which wasn't, but was volatile and prone
to exploding and setting people on fire). [1] Better options
existed but weren't as affordable.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camphine
Drunk_Engineer wrote 1 day ago:
Literally car-brained.
toomuchtodo wrote 1 day ago:
Coal trains: [1] | [2] | [3] Warehouses:
Air pollution impacts from warehousing in the United States uncovered
with satellite data - [4] | [5] Where Warehouses Are Built, Air
Pollution Follows - [6] Impact of Warehouse Expansion on Ambient
PM2.5 and Elemental Carbon Levels in Southern California's
Disadvantaged Communities: A Two-Decade Analysis - [7] | [8] Global
air quality map: [9] (this is why it is so important to electrify
trucks and to disallow industrial and commercial parks with lots of
truck traffic near residential and school areas; all of this
combustion/fossil energy pollution is creating health debt that will
catch up with us)
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/07/coal-pollution-is-ki...
[2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393512...
[3]: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2024.118787
[4]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-50000-0
[5]: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-50000-0
[6]: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153471/where-wareho...
[7]: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GH00...
[8]: https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GH001091
[9]: https://explore.openaq.org/
doctorwho42 wrote 1 day ago:
Health debt in America is just another business externality
CalRobert wrote 1 day ago:
Nice to know I've got bits of tire in my brain.
cluckindan wrote 1 day ago:
And a credit card.
knowitnone2 wrote 1 day ago:
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
boothby wrote 1 day ago:
That's an egregious abuse of statistics. It seems entirely
implausible that the age of dementia onset would not move in parallel
with lifespan.
sillyfluke wrote 1 day ago:
Well, the Yuramal in Colombia are the people that hold the record for
the most Alzeihmer cases because many possess the gene for early
onset and exhibit the diseases at 40 year of age. So for them the age
is quite young. This goes to show that currently the record is held
by genetic factors and not environmental factors.
But they also show that it instead of eliminating the root cause of
the disease, the solution might be eliminating its symptoms instead.
Cause one woman who had the gene defied all odds and exhibited the
symptom of the disease in her 70s. The reasoning is that another gene
she had, the Christchurch gene, protected her brain from the disease.
So if someone can use that info to prevent symptoms of the disease
eliminating the root cause would become secondary.
jt2190 wrote 1 day ago:
> ... defied all odds and exhibited the symptom of the disease in
her 70s.
I assume you mean: "exhibited no symptoms of the disease until her
70s".
Other than luck, did they have any idea why she was able to resist
the disease for so long?
sillyfluke wrote 15 hours 29 min ago:
yes, thats what I meant. Supposedly the woman had another
mutation in the Christchurch gene that counteracted the effects
of the early onset mutation.
lemonberry wrote 1 day ago:
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.
KolibriFly wrote 13 hours 2 min ago:
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
linotype wrote 1 day ago:
My wife and I don’t have children, but my exit strategy is assisted
suicide. I have no intention of living past my brain.
wonderwonder wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah, as morbid as it sounds, I have no intention of my wife and
children having to watch me degrade or to suffer that indignity
myself. My plan is of course to never suffer from this disease but
if I do, as soon as I know its spiraling I would check out. Would
probably do something like attempting to climb a very tall mountain
in the winter without oxygen. At least give myself a goal to
distract myself as I head towards the inevitable. If I make it to
the top I'll just take a long nap. That or just a massive Heroin
overdose where a security guard will find me in the morning so my
family doesn't have to deal with that. Big apologies to the
security guard ahead of time.
While I have lots of guns, the thought of putting a bullet in my
head is not something I could follow through on, would not want my
family to have to identify me looking like that.
bravesoul2 wrote 15 hours 25 min ago:
Suicide as a logical choice rather than a desperate one is so
rarely talked about. It is just interesting to see views on it.
For a "happy" person it sort of goes against the grain to do it
but I see the reasoning. Add in the confusion of dementia at the
time the decision has to be made. I'm not sure what to make of
it!
wonderwonder wrote 6 hours 26 min ago:
I’ve always been against suicide as a solution for
desperation, for example, people who feel trapped or don’t
like how their life turned out. I’ve always felt that at that
point in time you are truly free. abandon everything and go
live a new life. Join the marines, become a laborer on a farm,
join the crew of a ship, anything.
For situations that truly have no hope and the only outcome is
suffering both of yourself and your family. I understand it
now.
mjevans wrote 6 hours 56 min ago:
I don't think I'd be happy in that context. Medical technology
failed 'us' and at that point the body has failed too. Time
ran out and we did not slay the dragon. [1] CGP Grey : Fable of
the Dragon-Tyrant
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY
aziaziazi wrote 1 day ago:
Willing to share if/what’s your plans? Do you live in a somewhat
helping country like Swiss?
I’ve a similar view for myself but my GF find it creepy and
don’t want discuss it, yet. That’s embarrassing, I don’t wa…
to cause grief by a surprise disparition.
Practically speaking there’s NGOs that can help and even send
kits after a (long) checkup. Inert gas asphyxia seems to be a
classic as it’s fast, painless and quite cheap/easy.
linotype wrote 1 day ago:
I haven’t made concrete plans yet as that should be decades
away (though maybe I should anyway) and the laws change all the
time depending on the jurisdiction. I live in a country that’s
fairly lax gun wise so I could always take care of it myself.
toomuchtodo wrote 1 day ago:
Don't neglect yourself. Wishing you the best.
[1]: https://www.caregiveraction.org/
lemonberry wrote 1 day ago:
Thank you! People are always telling me about organizations that
can help, but honestly, I waffle between tunnel vision and absolute
overwhelm. It makes acting on suggestions very difficult.
ashleyn wrote 1 day ago:
One major reason I'm working extra years despite being FI is so I
have money to provide for memory care for my parents if they end up
needing that. They have downright nothing to their name and memory
care can easily run into half a million dollars total.
saltcured wrote 1 day ago:
My sympathies.
As hard as it is, supporting family members also need to learn to
prioritize taking care of themselves and avoiding a spiral towards
burnout. With dementia, there is often a time when the patient needs
a more controlled environment with 24x7 supervision. Dementia sleep
schedules and behaviors fall apart and are not really compatible with
a family caregiver's own health needs.
Depending on the dementia case, risky behaviors may emerge at night,
and having observant caregivers awake 24x7 may be very important. The
financial picture for this is quite difficult in the US. Normally
this requires a care facility at some point, as it is impossibly
expensive to bring sufficient dementia care via visiting
professionals.
To safely handle dementia with "sundowning" and wandering behaviors,
you usually need a facility that has about a dozen residents or more.
Then, budgets allow for multiple onsite staff and overnight wakeful
staff. This can bring more distinct staff roles too, e.g. cooking and
housekeeping versus care.
Even this may be overwhelmingly costly, to the point where the
dementia ends up depleting the estate and then shifting to some kind
of government support. For family or trustees managing this process,
it is full of difficult decisions regarding budget and care
tradeoffs. For example, do you splurge on "nicer" facilities or other
caregiver factors early on, or try to reserve more funds for the
inevitable crises? Dementia can be a drawn-out process, where care
needs expand to a crescendo before collapsing back to hospice care,
which may be more like other terminal illnesses.
lemonberry wrote 1 day ago:
Thank you. All of this is absolutely true. Thankfully, there has
been no risky behavior. However, as soon as that is the case I have
some pretty big decisions to make.
d4mi3n wrote 1 day ago:
You have my condolences. I helped my wife care for her late father
with Lewy body dementia. I think many people recognize they may need
to care for the people that raised them at some point, but the
realities of the costs--both financially and emotionally--are rarely
discussed. @lemonberry feel free to reach out if you need a friendly
ear, my email is in my profile.
On a personal note to anyone in this situation: Do not go it alone.
Being a caregiver is hard, but being a caregiver for someone with
serious memory issues is brutal and requires 24/7 monitoring. Your
loved one will not always cooperate. They may change into someone who
does not resemble the person you knew. Many states require such
persons to be homed somewhere with a 24/7 nursing staff. Plan
accordingly.
pacifika wrote 1 day ago:
Proves ULEZ is the right call.
echelon_musk wrote 1 day ago:
I wish all diesels could be included in the ULEZ ban. Or at minimum
all non commercial diesel engines.
As a motorbike rider I can taste the diesel fumes as soon as I'm
behind one in a way that's unlike any petrol car.
There's large particulates being thrown out by even the most
luxurious diesel cars that you simply couldn't tell if you're behind
in a car.
0x1ceb00da wrote 1 day ago:
Current AQI in london ULEZ is 48 according to google maps which is
not that good. Does that mean AQI is not a very good measure of air
quality?
daemonologist wrote 1 day ago:
48 is decent - at the high end of the "good" range - but AQI
fluctuates a lot from day to day. There were some fires on the
other side of the continent from me and that was enough to bump the
AQI here above 80.
Here's a report with some longer term trends (warning: 2MB PDF
download): [1] . Air pollution is down across London, and sharply
so on the most proximate roadside sensors.
[1]: https://www.london.gov.uk/media/105046/download
CJefferson wrote 1 day ago:
I don't know the current average, but it used to often be much
higher than that. Maybe the average has improved?
cinntaile wrote 1 day ago:
It doesn't really make sense what you're saying. First you say it's
not good but then you question the index. You're clearly using the
AQI to base your opinion on?
To answer the ULEZ question you should compare to not having ULEZ
there, which is what the GP was talking about.
0x1ceb00da wrote 1 day ago:
Right so london aqi used to be much worse but ULEZ helped.
hodgehog11 wrote 1 day ago:
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?
KolibriFly wrote 12 hours 56 min ago:
Right now, most of the pollution–dementia work points more toward
inflammation, oxidative stress, and vascular impacts rather than
nutrient depletion
ethan_smith wrote 1 day ago:
Some research suggests air pollution may disrupt blood-brain barrier
integrity, potentially affecting mineral transport including lithium,
while particulate matter can also bind to metal ions in the
bloodstream altering their bioavailability.
AnthonBerg wrote 1 day ago:
The two have been posited:
Lithium can be viewed an antioxidant – correctly or not?, I do not
know.
Air pollution can be viewed as oxidative stress.
It’s interesting to search Google Scholar for “lithium
antioxidant”.
cyberax wrote 1 day ago:
Lithium by itself is not an antioxidant. It's already oxidized in
any bio-available compound, so it can't be used to reduce anything.
But it apparently somehow modulates other systems that help with
oxidative stress.
AnthonBerg wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks!
cluckindan wrote 1 day ago:
Exposure to another similar metal could in theory displace lithium in
biological processes.
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