Hello and welcome back to our weekly climate newsletter.
Air pollution from climate-driven wildfires and other sources of the harmful PM2.5 particulate matter may directly raise people's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, researchers at Georgia's Emory University announced this week.
The most common form of dementia, more than 57 million people around the world live with the neurodegenerative disease. It leads to memory loss, cahnges in personality and problems with thinking and reasoning.
It is currently the seventh leading cause of death, according to the World Health Organisation.
While air pollution was a known risk factor for Alzheimer's and other chronic conditions, it was previously unclear whether it could be cause.
But after analyzing the health of nearly 28 million Americans aged 65 years and older, they found that greater exposure to air pollution was associated with an increased Alzheimer's risk – even after accounting for the other conditions air pollution was tied to.
"In this large national study of older adults, we found that long-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution was associated with a higher risk of Alzheimer's disease, largely through direct effects on the brain rather than through common chronic conditions such as hypertension, stroke, or depression," the researchers wrote.
Another study published this week has found that the number of days with conditions to spark extreme wildfires has nearly tripled over the past 45 years worldwide.
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