Air pollution increases likelihood of dementia in older women (KPCC)

KPCC-FM featured research by Jiu-Chiuan Chen of Keck Medicine of USC, Constantinos Sioutas and Arian Saffari of the USC Viterbi School, and Caleb Finch and Todd Morgan of the USC Leonard Davis School on the possible link between pollution and smog inhalation and the incidence of dementia. According to the study, smog could account for almost 21 percent of the world’s dementia cases if the findings hold true for the general population, not just older women. “We now know that the major Alzheimer’s risk gene APOE-e4 has an environmental component,” said Finch.