Living Near Busy Roads Likely to Suffer From Dementia, Alzheimer's [STUDY]

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People living on busy streets are more likely to suffer from dementia, a recent study claims. In fact, people living on the busy roads have a greater chance of developing the disease compared to those living far away from busy roads.

According to researchers in Canada, people living within the 50 meters parameter of high traffic streets have a 7 percent of chance of developing dementia in the near future as compared to those who live about 300 meters away from such busy streets.

As per an environmental and occupational health expert, Ray Copes, "Air pollutants can get into the blood stream and lead to inflammation, which is linked with cardiovascular disease and possibly other conditions such as diabetes." Mr. Copes further claimed that air pollutants that get into the brain through blood stream might cause several neurological problems.

The researchers at the Public Health Ontario conducted this study along with researchers from Canada's Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. As per ABC News, this team also analyzed records of over 6.5 million residents in Ontario between the age group of 20 years to 85 years.

Interestingly, the team found that about 243,611 cases of people suffering from Dementia between 2001 till 2012. After this, they traced the area of those people using pin codes.

The chances of dementia reduces to 4 percent when the residents stay away at least 50 to 100 meters from main road traffic. However, it reduced to 2 percent when they lived 10 1to 200 meters from the main traffic. Also, over 200 meters distance, the risk completely faded away.

According to The Guardian, the study didn't find any direct link of living near busy roads with that of Parkinson's disease, but dementia was slightly traced in those people living on busy streets and faded away in the distance. People living in major cities within 50 meters of a main road as well as those who didn't move from their house during the duration of study had a 12 percent higher risk of dementia.

As per the scientists, these studies could help the city and town planners taking traffic and air pollution into consideration.