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Air pollution directly linked to increased dementia risk

(www.nature.com)
275 points rntn | 3 comments | 07 Sep 25 13:13 UTC | HN request time: 0.199s | source
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firesteelrain ◴[07 Sep 25 14:49 UTC] No.45158651[source]▶
Dementia rates in Miami Dade are among the highest in the country while Utah is on the low end. What is striking is that Utah has worse air quality, which is a known risk factor, yet still shows lower prevalence.

Why is that?

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1. sleepyguy ◴[07 Sep 25 14:56 UTC] No.45158724[source]▶
Perhaps there are more elderly people in Miami-Dade.

What we should be asking is why aren't countries like China, India, and a lot of others in Asia suffering catastrophic rates of Dementia?

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2. firesteelrain ◴[07 Sep 25 14:57 UTC] No.45158747[source]▶
Good point. If air quality is a risk factor then how much?
3. idiotsecant ◴[07 Sep 25 15:06 UTC] No.45158833[source]▶
China's population skew heavily to middle age, whereas the US population pyramid is more like a population rectangle. It's entirely possible that they have an epidemic of dementia, but for a combination of social and demographic reasons that doesn't show in the data. Getting honest health data out of China, for example, is going to be pretty difficult.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:China_population_sex_by...

https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2...