Air pollution directly linked to increased dementia risk

Only so much you can do about ambient pollution in your city.

Looking carefully at your cooking situation is worthwhile though. Was horrified by the spike in readings from stuff like steak in a pan

Well studies like this are often directed at policymakers, who actually can do something about it.

Are there studies showing indoor air pollution from cooking in a residential setting is linked to dementia?

I've seen media reports from China about elevated lung cancer rates in non-smoking women. Just as scary, IMO. That being said, Chinese cooking makes much greater usage of stir-frying, and it's well known that most residential ventilation hoods are wholly inadequate for the task.

Not sure - it may very well be a different kind of pollution, but the raw PM2.5 values definitely look scary fast with any kind of "dry" cooking where you're browning anything

An air purifier is pretty cheap and will cut down on indoor pollution from cooking a lot. Or at least that’s how it seemed from the somewhat unreliable sensor I was using.

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-air-purifier...

I am homeless, I live in a minivan, and I have a solar battery charger with a small carbon filter/HEPA air filter that I use every night and it helps me so much. I am a very "sensitive" person to many things in the environment, but many times while traveling i find myself in the midst of wildfire smoke. (I also carry a facemask respirator for the same reason).

Good question, but I will say yes just based on the science I know. The type of pollutant does not matter, it is whatever effects heat shock proteins to effect protein folding.

Heat shock proteins (and cold shock proteins) are affected by more than temperature, but temperature is really important as well.[1][2]

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21848409/ [2] https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/article/80/4/glae...

Study: Household fuel use and motoric cognitive risk syndrome among older adults: Evidence from cohort study and life course analysis

Link: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12413735/

Conclusion: "Clean fuel use for cooking and transitioning from solid to clean fuels decreases MCRS risk among older adults. Moreover, earlier adoption of clean cooking fuels is associated with a lower prevalence of MCRS in later life..."

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Study: Association between cooking fuels and mild cognitive impairment among older adults from six low- and middle-income countries

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-17216-w

Conclusion: "In this large representative sample of older adults from multiple LMICs, unclean cooking fuel and a lack of chimney or hood when cooking were associated with a higher risk of MCI..."

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Study: Household air pollution from solid fuel use as a dose-dependent risk factor for cognitive impairment in northern China

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10074-6

Conclusions (summarized by ChatGPT):

> People who use solid fuels (like wood, coal, or crop residue) for cooking or heating tend to do worse on cognitive tests compared to those who use clean fuels (like electricity or natural gas). This effect shows up across several areas of thinking, but the biggest impacts were on attention (for cooking) and orientation (for heating).

> The more often people currently use solid fuel stoves, the worse they do on attention-related tasks. For example: if someone cooks with a solid fuel stove 100 extra days in a year, their attention score drops by about 0.05 points (a small but measurable decline).

> Long-term exposure matters too. For every 5 extra years of solid fuel stove use (over the past 20 years), people scored about 0.07 points lower in attention tests. In other words: the longer you’ve been exposed, the worse your performance tends to be.

The raw PM2.5 values also skyrocket with just boiling tap water, on my Ikea Vindstyrka. Which makes me question how useful it is, presumably even with "dry" cooking a lot of meats and vegetables have water in them?

https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/vindstyrka-air-quality-sensor-s...

And lobbyists are also directed at those policy makers...which is the bigger problem.

Big spikes in soft money group spending in 22 and 24 elections...

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?cycle=2024&ind=...

Policy makers generally only give a damn if someone else makes them - or they get something from it.

They can do the old fashioned make things better to make the voters happy and get reelected. In London the mayor has brought in a lot of anti pollution measures and although the tabloids and right wing media go on about how awful he is, he gets reelected, including my voting.

This thing says roadside ppm2.5 is down from 17 to 8 in central where I live https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/07/london-a...

It's actually not been established (at least, to the best of my knowledge) that PM2.5 caused by water vapor is any less harmful than other types of PM2.5 particulates.

And sure, yes, it's just water and its entirely plausible that water based PM2.5 is completely harmless... but wouldn't it be good to know that for sure?

FWIW, I think the wirecutter's quality for air purifiers is pretty bad, and likely more influenced by affiliate payments than science: https://dynomight.net/ikea-purifier/

Wouldn't that suggest that, at least to some degree, dementia would be elevated in humid vs. dry climates?

Wouldn't we see dementia occurrence higher among cooks, then? Or do we?

I tried the cheap IKEA model and with my severe dust mite allergies the model was insufficient in comparison to calm my sixth sinus-bound sense.

My main suspicion: In my last 3 abodes with pre-1955 construction in East Coast, the pre-filter on the top Wirecutter pick needs to be cleaned 3x per carbon filter replacement in order to reduce largest particle accumulation on the carbon or HEPA filters.

The inexpensive IKEA model did not have a viable and easily cleaned pre filter as far as I could figure out.

Sauna ritual life would make an interesting comparison.

The ikea Fornuftig has a snap-on piece of cloth covered plastic that serves as a pre-filter, a replaceable particle filter, and a replaceable optional gas filter.

I've found that taking a shop vac and leaf blower to the pre-filter works quite well to get it clean.

That said, the Ikea air purifiers only make sense if you have a room that's about the right size for the Fornuftig. Their larger purifier is worse value, and you're better off looking at something like the Squair.

Just buy three for the same price as one expensive model :D

I have mine hooked up to smart outlets and particulate meter to automate them. I just wish I could control the speed.

Water particles vs water vapor

That's the cynical take, but as far as I can tell it is far from universally true. You just hear about all the bad cases. Not to mention, the the way it pulls on policy can be much more subtle than getting bills passed.