A new study has found that people living in areas with persistent exposure to wildfire smoke may have higher risks of developing dementia.
In the western United States, there are regions where half of people’s annual exposure to fine particulate pollution is caused by wildfire smoke, said Sara Adar, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Michigan and an author of the new study, published Aug. 14 in JAMA Internal Medicine.
the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who was not involved in the study. “We need to know if there are certain [PM2.5] sources that really impact dementia so we can figure out what to regulate and where.”Zhang and her team cognitively assessed nearly 30,000 Americans age 50 and older living throughout the country,. None of the participants had dementia at the start of the study, and follow-ups were conducted every two years to track if there had been changes in their health.
The researchers estimated that nearly 188,000 new cases of dementia every year were attributable to total PM2.5 exposure in the United States. After they adjusted for other risk factors, the team found that only wildfire smoke and agricultural emissions were linked to the disease.PM2.5 emitted from agricultural activity had the highest concentrations in the Midwest.
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