Air Pollution From Cars Is a Risk Factor for Alzheimer's

A study in Environmental Health Perspectives found an association between traffic-related air pollution and a higher risk for age-related dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, reports Futurity . The team built a rodent vivarium near a traffic tunnel in Northern California in order to mimic what humans might experience from traffic-related air contamination. Male and female rats were exposed for up to 14 months to filtered or polluted air from the tunnel. "We saw that traffic-related air pollution accelerated Alzheimer's disease characteristics not only in the animals who express the risk gene which we anticipated but also in the wild type rats," said the University of California, Davis' Pamela Lein. "We didn't anticipate that. The big, exciting discovery is that traffic-related air pollution is a risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer's disease. This is important because this pollution is everywhere and could explain the increased number of people impacted by Alzheimer's disease across the world."