“The seeds of adult-onset brain diseases are often planted early and possibly in childhood,” says Dr. Ray Dorsey, neurologist and Director of the Center for the Brain and the Environment at Atria Health and Research Institute. “One of the causes of these seeds is likely outdoor air pollution, and this could explain why diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, which historically have likely been rare, are now incredibly common.”
Dr. Dorsey, the author of two books on Parkinson’s disease, notes that countless studies have linked air pollution to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Studies have also shown that areas of the country with high levels of soot pollution, a.k.a. PM 2.5, which includes places with concentrations of petrochemical plants, have higher rates of Parkinson’s. Dr. Dorsey will discuss the links between air pollution and the brain as a panelist at Moms Clean Air Force’s annual summit on Wednesday, March 4, Plastics on Our Minds and in Our Brains. There, he’ll join other doctors, scientists, government officials, and community members reviewing the latest scientific discoveries about petrochemicals and the plastics created from them, and dangers to health, especially children’s health.
JOIN PLASTICS ON OUR MINDS AND IN OUR BRAINS ON MARCH 4
Focus on Parkinson’s
A nagging question motivated Dr. Dorsey to dig in deep on Parkinson’s disease. It was first described in six individuals by Dr. James Parkinson in 1817. “How do you go from a disease that’s not classified affecting six likely men in London to one affecting 6 million men and women throughout the world?” he wondered. On a work sabbatical in 2018, he tried to answer this quandary, especially as, he notes, air pollution in 1800s London is equivalent to what’s in Delhi, India, today or to when the skies over New York City turned orange from the Canadian wildfires two summers ago.
His response was to write Ending Parkinson’s Disease, his first book. “My colleagues and I said Parkinson’s was largely a man-made disease. The principal causes do not lie in our genes. They lie outside us in our environment and chemicals in our food, like certain pesticides, water, dry-cleaning chemicals, and outdoor air, including air pollution,” he says.
A follow-up book, The Parkinson’s Plan: A New Path to Prevention and Treatment, describes the nose as the brain’s front door. “We argue that for some individuals, air pollution and other toxins that we inhale are able to exploit the blood-brain barrier. It does a very good job of keeping chemicals out, but the nose allows these chemicals in.” He points out that one of the earliest features of Alzheimer’s as well as Parkinson’s disease, years before tremor or memory difficulties, is loss of smell. “We think that the nose might be the front door of the brain, and outdoor air pollution, indoor air pollution, and other chemicals are exploiting this and sowing the seeds or laying the foundation for these adult-onset diseases. And that foundation is laid when people are young,” he explains, adding, “I think the health you enjoy today is reflective of your environment in the past.”
Sources of air pollution
The biggest sources of air pollution that impact the diseases Dr. Dorsey researches are traffic and forest fires. “Outdoor air pollution costs humans on average three years of life,” he notes. Industrial air pollution, including from petrochemical plants, is another source. Although outdoor air pollution is more disabling than high blood pressure, no one is measuring air pollution in people’s bodies.
“You can’t take your kid to the orthopedist for a sprained ankle without getting their blood pressure checked. But is anyone measuring air pollution?” Dr. Dorsey faults medical professionals for not checking. “We’re asleep. We’re allowing the seeds of Alzheimer’s, the seeds of Parkinson’s to be planted. There was a study linking outdoor air pollution to ALS, to intellectual disabilities, to asthma. It goes on and on. We’re failing to protect the public from the effects of outdoor air pollution, and we’re doing this by knowingly ignoring it and failing to measure it,” he says.
Regulation as disease prevention
Air pollution today is arguably lower than it was in past decades, and before the Clean Air Act. But we are now faced with a government and an EPA that is actively deprioritizing the regulation of air pollutants—a gift to industry polluters.
“This is political, but not partisan,” Dr. Dorsey says, noting that when Ronald Reagan was governor of California, air pollution was so bad that he said all unnecessary driving should be banned, and that EPA was founded in 1970 under President Richard Nixon. “Everyone talks about Nixon’s war on cancer. What people don’t realize is that in his speech, he talks about preventing cancer and that we should stop just trying to cure diseases where we don’t know the causes. We should figure out what the causes of disease are and seek to prevent them in the first place. I think we can do the same thing here. We have great evidence that air pollution is harmful to people.”
And we have evidence of air pollution and health harms across all medical specialties: pulmonologists talk about asthma and lung cancer; cardiologists talk about heart disease; stroke neurologists talk about stroke; and Dr. Dorsey is speaking about Parkinson’s while his colleagues are addressing Alzheimer’s.
“The question is, can we summon the will to change it, to continue to make our air quality better? 95% of people throughout the world breathe unhealthy air, and this is not necessary. We’re paying a really, really, really high price. What greater indictment of the health of our environment do you need? Why are taxpayers subsidizing the healthcare costs of people developing asthma and Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s?” he asks.
Lawsuits have been filed to keep EPA true to its mission to protect human health by regulating air pollution. Meanwhile, Dr. Dorsey is fast at work on his next book, due out in 2028. It will extend the arguments that Parkinson’s is preventable to saying that a large portion of brain diseases from autism to Alzheimer’s are likely preventable.
“And among the ways to prevent it is to breathe clean air,” says Dr. Dorsey. “Starting at a young age, you can set your kids and grandkids up for a life without these diseases, without Parkinson’s, without Alzheimer’s, by ensuring that they have clean food, clean water, and clean air at a young age. What a nice thing to give them, even long after you’ve passed.”