by DANNY LEWIS
IMAGE/Victor de Schwanberg/Science Photo Library/Corbis
Dementia is affecting people more and earlier than ever before — but is pollution the culprit?
People are developing and dying from dementia almost a decade earlier than they used to — and it might be thanks to pollution.
A new study published in the Surgical Neurology International journal suggests that heightened levels of pollution and insecticides in the environment could be causing people to develop dementia younger than ever before. After comparing data from 21 countries between 1989 and 2010, researchers from Bournemouth University found that people are now regularly being diagnosed with dementia as early as their 40s, Daniela Deane writes for The Washington Post.
“The rate of increase in such a short time suggests a silent or even a ‘hidden’ epidemic, in which environmental factors must play a major part, not just aging,” lead author Colin Pritchard wrote in a press release. “Modern living produces multi-interactional environmental pollution but the changes in human morbidity, including neurological disease is remarkable and points to environmental influences.”
Growing dementia rates are particularly noticeable in the United States, where researchers found that deaths related to neurological problems have tripled for men and quintupled for women aged 55 and older. Dementia typically affects people aged 60 and older. According to Pritchard, the increase in early-onset dementia is so stark that it can’t be blamed solely on aging populations and better diagnoses.
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