Air pollution and dementia

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is today recognized as being one of the leading causes of mortality, and the prevalence is expected to quadruple globally by 2050 (1). Dementia not only takes a heavy toll on the afflicted persons and his/her close relatives, but is also associated with high economic costs to society, making dementia on of the most feared chronic diseases. Given the substantial personal and societal burden from dementia, it is imperative to identify modifiable risk factors. The etiology of AD, dementia and its mechanisms are not yet fully understood. Age, heredity, head injury and cardiovascular disease are important risk factors, but environmental factors have been suggested to be important on a population-level.