Pollution linked to brain disease.
By Jessica Mangold.
The Metro, UK - 16 August, 2004.
A ‘DEVIL'S brew of environmental change' was blamed yesterday for a dramatic increase in deaths from brain disease.
The number of people killed by dementia in Britain has trebled in the past 20 years, with a daily exposure to environmental pollutants - such as pesticides and food preservatives - linked to the rise. In the late 1970s, there were 3,000 deaths a year from conditions such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease.
By the late 1990s, there were 10,000 such deaths among men and women in England and Wales , researchers said. Prof Colin Pritchard, who led the study by Bournemouth and Southampton universities, said: `You have got a devil's brew of environmental change and it is beginning to show signs in the patterns of these diseases and the numbers of deaths. We are not taking pollution seriously enough. People should stop putting their heads in the sand.'
Scientists claim the daily exposure to pollutants, domestic and industrial chemicals, lies at the heart of an increase in neurological diseases recorded throughout Western countries. The study places England and Wales fifth behind the Netherlands , Italy , Spain and the US for the biggest overall increase in deaths between 1979 and 1997.
Prof Pritchard told the journal Public Health: `The multiple use of chemicals in our home and in our food is part of our everyday society, but what the chemical industry does not test is the interaction between several chemicals being used at once. This increase in deaths has to be environmental.'
...and don't live by a major road
LIVING near a busy road is as harmful to your health as having a major illness, researchers said yesterday. It can knock more than two years off your life expectancy since busier roads mean greater pollution. However, the impact on health is not on the lungs, with conditions such as asthma, but the heart. Canadian researchers found that a 50-year-old living within 50m of a major highway or 100m of a busy road had the same mortality rate as a 52-year-old living in a quieter area. Lead researcher Michael Jerrett told the American Journal of Epidemiology that people with a heart condition ought to think twice about living near high-traffic areas. British studies back up the findings. Women in rural west Somerset live 84 years on average compared with 76 years in Manchester , according to official statistics.
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