Tiny air pollution particles have been revealed in the brain stems of young people and are intimately associated with molecular damage linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
If the groundbreaking discovery is confirmed by future research, it would have worldwide implications because 90% of the global population live with unsafe air. Medical experts are cautious about the findings and said that while the nanoparticles are a likely cause of the damage, whether this leads to disease later in life remains to be seen.
There is already good statistical evidence that higher exposure to air pollution increases rates of neurodegenerative diseases, but the significance of the new study is that it shows a possible physical mechanism by which the damage is done.
The researchers found abundant pollution nanoparticles in the brainstems of 186 young people from Mexico City who had died suddenly between the ages of 11 months and 27 years. They are likely to have reached the brain after being inhaled into the bloodstream, or via the nose or gut.
Read more at The Guardian.
{Matzav.com}
This may help to explain why the age specific incidence of Alzheimer’s disease has been declining in the US over the past few decades. Air pollution had been dramatically reduced over the past half century. Further research is needed to analyze this. Another possible contributor is the incredible success we have had in treating hypertension, which also can cause dementia.
Unfortunately, President Trump has set out to reverse these gains in air pollution levels by allowing dramatically increased pollution and by promoting coal burning — and the gains in hypertension treatement by having the Supreme Court cancel the health insurance of tens of millions of Americans.
Also airborne diseases had been dramatically reduced, at least until the current year.
The location of the main coal plant in question was far from any major inhabited area. But more to the point, what Trump did NOT do is force coal burning operation to continue. What Trump DID do was give coal supporters the opportunity to save their industry if they can. What actually happened in the past 4 years is that these people who were given the opportunity simply failed, and now Trump, the country and the world can go on knowing that it was only the coal industry’s own weaknesses, not any government intrusion, that has led to its demise. And that shows how an honest capitalist system (even as limited to such a small portion) actually works.
In contrast, the government’s involvement in subsidizing such things (as one example) as corn syrup (through subsidy of corn) has led to very unhealthy food choices due to artificially lower prices. And at the same time the government spends more money telling us it is bad for us and not to eat it. So just waste tax money on self-contradictory initiatives to get votes. the article I looked up now on it is dated 2012. So thank you Obama for all the diseases and deaths your food policies have brought and for your psychological and fiscal warfare on the common citizen.
Actually what killed coal was fracked natual gas. It is cheaper for a power plant to burn natural gas than coal. If Trump really wanted to save coal he would ban fracking.
And this is where I need to bash the leftists. (I actually bashed AOC on her Twitter feed about this very issue about ten minutes ago.) The replacement of coal with natural gas as the main fuel for power plants has resulted in dramatic reductions in air pollution. Lives have been saved. The nutty leftists who want to ban fracking would reverse this. Trump is not the only dangerous nutjob out there, it is just that he is the one with power who needs to be removed from office first. Note that Biden opposes banning fracking and is getting lots of grief from the nutty far left for that position.
Unfortunately corn subsidies will remain as long as Iowa remains a swing state. For decades people like me have been screaming about how ethanol from corn is a spectacularly bad idea. No President has subsidized farmers as much as Trump — because otherwise, his stupid trade wars would have put them all out of business. He turned farmers from productive citizens to welfare recipients on the dole. He was actually willing to shut down the government just a week ago if he didn’t get his subsidies. Pelosi had to cave.