Are we ready to call exposure to air pollution a risk factor for dementia?
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Does exposure to air pollution influence the development of dementia? The possibility that it might rests on 2 overarching theories. The first ties air pollution to dementia through its effects on other conditions, especially cardiovascular disease, stroke, and systematic inflammation. The second, drawn from controlled studies of animals, purports that some pollutants translocate to the brain from the nasal passage through the olfactory tract and wreak havoc upon arrival. All told, air pollution could be pleiotropically neurotoxic, unleashing an array of neuropathologic effects—cerebrovascular, Alzheimer-related, and others—that fuel dementia risk.
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