Thread by @NTFabiano

Living near heavy traffic is associated with a higher incidence of dementia.

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These findings are from a study in @TheLancet which aimed to investigate the association between residential proximity to major roadways and the incidence of neurological diseases. 2/10 thelancet.com/journals/lance…

Concern is growing that exposures associated with traffic such as air pollution and noise might contribute to neurodegenerative pathology; air pollutants and diesel exhaust induce oxidative stress and neuroinflammation, activate microglia, and stimulate neural antibodies. 3/10

Living near traffic is a multifaceted exposure representing heightened exposure to nitrogen oxides, ultrafine particles, fine particulate matter, heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, noise, and other factors. 4/10

Between 2001 and 2012, 243,611 incident cases of dementia, 31,577 cases of Parkinson's disease, and 9,247 cases of multiple sclerosis were identified. 5/10

The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of incident dementia was 1.07 for people living less than 50m from a major traffic road, 1.04 for 50–100m, 1.02 for 101–200m, and 1.00 for 201–300m versus further than 300m. 6/10

No association was found with Parkinson's disease or multiple sclerosis. 7/10

Although the increase in risk might appear moderate, this translates to 7–11% of dementia cases in patients who live near major roads attributable to traffic exposure. 8/10

The associations were robust to various sensitivity analyses, except for additional adjustment for fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) which led to a modest attenuation. 9/10

Overall, this study suggests that improvements in environmental health policies and land use planning aimed at reducing traffic exposure can have considerable potential for prevention of dementia, which would lead to a broad public health implication. 10/10

More on eggs and Alzheimer’s dementia:

https://x.com/NTFabiano/status/1868330464529858829