Laziness and air pollution largely to blame for dementia: study

By Isobel Williams via SWNS

Dementia is a modern condition largely caused by laziness and air pollution, claims a new study.

Analysis of classical Greek and Roman medical texts suggests that Alzheimer’s disease was extremely rare 2,000 to 2,500 years ago.

The researchers believe that Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are diseases of modern environments and lifestyles, with couch potato lifestyles and exposure to air pollution largely to blame.

Ancients Greeks had often recognized that aging brought memory issues, but nothing approaching a major loss of memory, speech and reasoning as caused by Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia.

Centuries later in ancient Rome, a few mentions began to crop up. For example, Galen remarked that at the age of 80, some elderly begin to have difficulty learning new things.

The authors speculate that as Roman cities grew denser, pollution increased, driving up cases of cognitive decline.

Furthermore, Roman aristocrats used lead cooking vessels, lead water pipes and even added lead acetate into their wine to sweeten it — unwittingly poisoning themselves with the powerful neurotoxin.

Professor Caleb Finch, from the University of Southern California, said: “The ancient Greeks had very, very few — but we found them — mentions of something that would be like mild cognitive impairment.

“When we got to the Romans, we uncovered at least four statements that suggest rare cases of advanced dementia — we can’t tell if it’s Alzheimer’s.

“So, there was a progression going from the ancient Greeks to the Romans.”

To further support his findings, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, professor Finch studied modern day Tsimane Amerindians, an Indigenous people of the Bolivian Amazon.

The Tsimane have a preindustrial lifestyle that is very physically active, and they in turn have extremely low rates of dementia.

Among older Tsimane people only about one percent suffer from dementia, compared with 11 percent of people over 65 in the US suffering with the condition.

This suggests that modern lifestyles could be responsible for the increase in cases of Alzheimer's disease.

Professor Finch added: “The Tsimane data, which is quite deep, is very valuable.

“This is the best-documented large population of older people that have minimal dementia, all of which indicates that the environment is a huge determinant on dementia risk.

“They give us a template for asking these questions.”