Air pollution causes brain structure changes that resemble Alzheimer's disease | Hacker News Reader

Air pollution causes brain structure changes that resemble Alzheimer's disease

nytimes.com

139 pointsbookofjoe33 comments

Related / same vein:

Broccoli sprout extract contains compounds which lead to the production of something called sulforaphane.

Sulforphane, a chemoprotective compound, has been shown to rapidly 'detoxify' the body of airborne pollutants and other carcinogens. [1,2,3]

Briefly:

>> In this subgroup analysis, the increases in the excretion of the mercapturic acids of benzene, acrolein, and crotonaldehyde for the broccoli sprout versus placebo group were +54.7% (+27.2%, +88.1%), +21.7% (+1.8%, 45.5%), and +2.0% (−13.7%, +20.4%), respectively.

1 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4125483/

2 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3276337/

3 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24287881

Out of curiosity, I looked into the best ways to get this sulforaphane. Studies have found that it forms after plant defense systems are triggered by damage(like an herbivore chewing), but cooking(including the blanching done to frozen foods) cuts off that process. Some studies show that cutting up fresh broccoli, then letting it sit 90 minutes before cooking would allow for greater levels[0], and another showed adding powdered mustard seed to heated broccoli also increases levels[1].

[0]https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jafc.7b05913 [1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23411305

This is why raw broccoli sprouts are gaining popularity - they can be added to smoothies easily and are relatively palatable.

Yep.

Get the Broccoli Sprout Extract in capsules from a vitamin provider you trust: It has the max percentage of the desirable compounds.

Anecdotally, if you open the bottle and it smells like slightly rotten eggs, you know it's good (this is a sulfur compound after all).

> a vitamin provider you trust

I don't many of them these days. Heard through the grapevine, one manufacturer was turning away more and more source material since it was contaminated. Not all manufacturers test on a consistent bases. It seemed that most of the things like vitamins, amino acids were OK, but the plant-based things were nosediving in purity.

Wouldn't just eating them work better?

I would prefer this (pretty easy to grow I guess?).

The advantage of the extract is that it is concentrated, so 1 gelcap is equivalent to $X grams of raw material I would wager. Theoretically bioavailability may be a bit better too with the extract.

Does that mean that cold-processed powder might work well?

A few weeks ago there was another story about air pollution and cognitive decline that made it onto the frontpage. I noticed that most of the comments on that story were people discussing air filters, respirators, etc.

I wanna get ahead of that crowd this time and say: this doesn't make much sense as a problem for individuals to solve. We should instead be focused on measuring the problem (where is most of the pollution coming from) and passing legislation to drive it down.

Air pollution is localized and therefore easier to legislate around (because the people polluting and the people suffering are in the same legislature). Local and state-level laws can help here in a way that they can't for climate change (which requires more international coordination).

Meanwhile, you can get air filters, respirators, etc. which work today while legislation could be decades away.

And when there is no personal action in favor of a thing, consider how difficult it will be to pass legislation in favor of that thing?

Imagine if all EVs, all good hybrid cars (e.g. Toyota), all vegetarianism for environmental reasons, rooftop solar, and all other "individual actions" were eliminated and carbon emissions doubled, and nobody seemingly cared about climate change. Just imagine how much harder it would be to get a carbon tax. The timeline would go from someday to never.

Just as a general statement, some of the people who tell you "oh no, don't engage in individual action!" aren't actually supportive of the legislative approaches they suggest. They are scared that people taking a visible, meaningful personal stand against something will move the needle in favor of changes they oppose, in ways that online statements can't. Not everyone for sure, but those people are there, pretending to be allies.

I've lived in 2 places with persistent (~365 days per year) bad air pollution (France and Taiwan), and 1 place with seasonal air pollution, and the idea of not taking individual action to protect myself is just stupid. I support legislative approaches where sensible (or even possible), but:

> Meanwhile, you can get air filters, respirators, etc. which work today

Pollution comes from individual activity and consumption almost entirely (since industries are more or less directly producing for people). So solutions against pollution are individual actions (lower footprint, it's possible to live well with 5% of the average person's footprint) and global ones (green cities)

It's a bit ironic to think about buying air purifier/conditioners/filters.. which maybe lower very locally the pollution, but increase the global pollution (for making, delivering, maintaining, powering, recycling those devices)

"New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down!"

My aunt lived in a house for years which turned out to have a leaky gas pipe in the basement. Aside from the fire hazard, she had been breathing in gradually rising levels of fumes for many years. Recently she has been diagnosed with Alsheimer's. Is it possible that type of gas was a contributing factor?

Anecdotally, during the Bay Area fires of 2018 when the air quality was the worse in the world, it truly felt like walking around in a half-functional dazed fog

So does it make sense for people to spend more time indoors?

It makes more sense to eliminate air pollution.

Electric vehicles would eliminate a lot of noise pollution too.

As a city dweller there is nothing I long for more than complete electrification of all transport and the death of the ICE.

Sadly tyre, brakes, and road abrasion apparently account for far more particulate pollution than the exhaust does. I'd like to find another source for this because it's so surprising.

The only solution I suppose is no cars.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7236155/Elec...

No cars is no solution, unless you can solve the problem of people needing to go places. Public transport just doesn't cut it and I'm from Europe.

There are a lot of particles coming out of tires and brakes.

I'd love gasoline to go away too but most particulate would still be there in the switch because of brakes and tires:

http://www.soliftec.com/NonExhaust%20PMs.pdf (2016) Study highlights:

* A positive relationship exists between vehicle weight and non-exhaust emissions.

* Electric vehicles are 24% heavier than their conventional counterparts.

* Electric vehicle PM emissions are comparable to those of conventional vehicles.

* Non-exhaust sources account for 90% of PM10 and 85% of PM2.5 from traffic.

* Future policy should focus on reducing vehicle weight

Part of this is that we already spent a lot of deliberate effort on reducing emissions from engines. As the study notes:

> Before the introduction of air quality standards, exhaust emissions used to be a major source of PM, especially for diesel cars (Miguel et al., 1998). Since then, PM emission standards for vehicle exhausts have become increasingly strict and now all new diesel passenger cars are fitted with a diesel particulate filter (DPF). Bergmann et al. (2009) found that DPFs are very effective at reducing PM emissions, lowering the emitted mass of PM by 99.3%

It is unclear to me how everyone misses these points when discussing electric vehicles. My utopian view is electric bikes and electric velo-rickshaws in cities where heavy vehicles aren’t allowed (at least inside the living areas). Current road safety standards must account for collisions of heavy metal boxes moving at high speeds. Imagine how much less protection you need with vehicles weighing under 100kg and going at max speed of 25kmh. In a city like Berlin current average speed for cars is 17kmh. It is just stupid to keep going the way we do :'(

That paper has some flawed assumptions, I think. For one, they tie resuspension linearly to vehicle weight, but say that it's related to the vehicle's wake. It seems that they're confounded by the typical relationship of weight and size (therefore wake). But electric vehicles while heavier, are typically the same size as ICE vehicles. Thus they might break the assumption that greater weight means greater resuspension.

The paper says that resuspension is the largest part of non-emissions particulates, so we have lowered brake sources (because regen means less pad wear) and lower emissions, and probably not greater resuspension. Maybe tire wear is higher. Put those together and it seems like electric vehicles should come out ahead, particularly if we're talking about diesel vehicles.

Thanks for sharing this.

Depends where, many things are constantly releasing chemicals indoors: bed foam, floors, paint, pm10/2.5 from cooking, most furnitures.

What is this, an article for ants?

I’m a serous note though, air pollution is a major problem in places like Lahore, Peshawar etc(Pakistan).

I wonder if the best approach to regulating pollution is go from regulation and policy change or try to come up with solutions (startups) that tackle the problem directly...

There's almost zero monetary incentives for any startups.

Product focused on indoor pollution - doesn't help that much as people still spend some time outside.

Product that "cleans" outdoor pollution - the only way to get money from that is to sell it directly to government (maybe local). Unless you develop something really groundbreaking it's cheaper to do regulation and policy changes.

Sample size is 998 and is only women.

The study: https://academic.oup.com/brain/advance-article-abstract/doi/...

>"Evidence suggests exposure to particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter <2.5 μm (PM2.5) may increase the risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Whether PM2.5 alters brain structure and accelerates the preclinical neuropsychological processes remains unknown. "

I'm sure air pollution is pretty bad for you but this seems statistically insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Great headline for New Yorkers who need something else to be afraid of.

Your quote is only from first half of the abstract... You haven't even quoted any statistics, where are you getting "statistically insignificant" from? The article itself shows that there is an association between AD and long-term PM2.5. See below for some actual statistical findings:

"In multilevel structural equation models, PM2.5 was associated with greater declines in immediate recall and new learning, but no association was found with decline in delayed-recall or composite scores. For each interquartile increment (2.81 μg/m3) of PM2.5, the annual decline rate was significantly accelerated by 19.3% [95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.9% to 36.2%] for Trials 1–3 and 14.8% (4.4% to 24.9%) for List B performance, adjusting for multiple potential confounders. Long-term PM2.5 exposure was associated with increased Alzheimer’s disease pattern similarity scores, which accounted for 22.6% (95% CI: 1% to 68.9%) and 10.7% (95% CI: 1.0% to 30.3%) of the total adverse PM2.5 effects on Trials 1–3 and List B, respectively. The observed associations remained after excluding incident cases of dementia and stroke during the follow-up, or further adjusting for small-vessel ischaemic disease volumes. Our findings illustrate the continuum of PM2.5 neurotoxicity that contributes to early decline of immediate free recall/new learning at the preclinical stage, which is mediated by progressive atrophy of grey matter indicative of increased Alzheimer’s disease risk, independent of cerebrovascular damage."

So you would think that men are imune to pollution.

Even if men were immune poisoning only half the population still seems like a bad idea.

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