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By Maria Azzurra Volpe
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Scientists have just found a direct link between air pollution and Alzheimer’s disease—suggesting that improving air quality could be an important way to prevent dementia and protect older adults.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, which affects about 57 million people worldwide, and there is currently no cure for it, making prevention is crucial.
While exposure to air pollution is a known risk factor for several common chronic health conditions linked to Alzheimer’s disease—like depression, hypertension and stroke—it was previously unclear whether air pollution causes these chronic conditions, which can then lead to dementia, or if these conditions might amplify the effects of air pollution on brain health.
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To find out more, environmental health researcher Yanling Deng of Emory University, Georgia, and her and colleagues, examined data on more than 27.8 million U.S. Medicare recipients aged 65 years and older from 2000 to 2018.
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The researchers looked at individuals’ air pollution exposure level and whether they developed Alzheimer's disease, while emphasizing the role of other chronic conditions.
They found that greater exposure to air pollution was associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, and that association was slightly stronger in individuals who had experienced a stroke, noting that chronic conditions had little additional impact.
“The data is clear enough to suggest that we need to treat air quality as a brain‑health issue, not just a lung‑health issue," said professor Bryce Vissel of the University of New South Wales (UNSW), who was not involved in the present study, in a statement.
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The study concluded that long-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution was associated with a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease, largely through direct effects on the brain rather than through common chronic conditions such as hypertension, stroke or depression.
These results indicate that improving air quality could be an important way to prevent dementia and protect older adults.
“Dementia risk is not just about personal choices. It is also about the air we breathe and the environments we live in over decades,” added epidemiologist professor Susanne Röhr, also of UNSW, who was also not involved in the present study.
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Reference
Deng, Y., Liu, Y., Hao, H., Xu, K., Zhu, Q., Li, H., Ma, T., & Steenland, K. (2026). The role of comorbidities in the associations between air pollution and Alzheimer’s disease: A national cohort study in the American Medicare population. PLOS Medicine, 23(2). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004912
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