New Breakthrough Study Links Industrial Pollution to Alzheimer’s

FEATURING BARBARA MAHER – Alzheimer’s Disease is one of the most dreaded afflictions related to aging – and with good reason. The disease which current affects about 5 million Americans, is expected to impact 16 million people by the year 2050. After the age of 85, your chance of developing Alzheimer’s is 50%. While millions of dollars and years of research have been spent trying to determine the cause of Alzheimer’s as well as effective treatment or a cure, medical researchers continue to be stymied.

Now, a breakthrough study has pointed to a promising theory behind why people develop the disease. Researchers at Lancaster University in the UK examined the brains of people who lived in Mexico City and in Manchester, England. What they found was startlingly high levels of toxic magnetite nanoparticles that are very similar to those found in urban polluted areas. Is it possible that industrial pollution might be a serious risk factor in developing Alzheimer’s Disease?

Barbara Maher, Professor and co-Director of Lancaster Environment Centre’s internationally renowned Centre for Environmental Magnetism & Palaeomagnetism at Lancaster University. She is the lead author of a new paper entitled, Magnetite pollution nanoparticles in the human brain, just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.