Research Department, School of Health Sciences, Campus Victoria, Universidad del Valle de México, Victoria, Tamaulipas, México.
J Alzheimers Dis. 2019;71(1):1-5. doi: 10.3233/JAD-190177.
Dementia has become a major public health concern around the world. Dementia risk factors are significantly different among countries. The number of new cases of dementia anticipated each year worldwide is almost 7.7 million, one new case every four seconds. There are 3.6 million (46%) new cases per year in Asia, 2.3 million (31%) in Europe, 1.2 million (16%) in the Americas, and 0.5 million (7%) in Africa. Latin American and Caribbean low and middle-income countries are at high risk. Air pollution is an important risk modifiable factor for dementia across the world, and the recent report of the Alzheimer's disease continuum in children and young adults residing in Metropolitan Mexico City along with the presence of cognitive impairment in 55% of the young adult population residing in Mexican cities with fine particulate matter concentrations above the current USEPA annual standard of 12 μg/m3 makes this a severe public health problem in progress. It is imperative to keep generating epidemiological data on dementia worldwide and their relationship with air pollutants to improve the strategies to face all the challenges associated with dementia and Alzheimer's disease in particular. Alzheimer's disease is a fatal disease, we have no cure, and we ought to invest in protecting our citizens by intervening in modifiable environmental factors.
痴呆症已成为全球主要的公共卫生关注点。痴呆症的风险因素在各国之间存在显著差异。预计全球每年新增痴呆症病例近 770 万例，每四秒钟就有一例新病例。亚洲每年有 360 万例（46%）新病例，欧洲有 230 万例（31%），美洲有 120 万例（16%），非洲有 50 万例（7%）。拉丁美洲和加勒比地区的中低收入国家风险较高。空气污染是全球痴呆症的一个重要可改变风险因素，最近在墨西哥城大都市地区居住的儿童和青年人群中阿尔茨海默病连续体的报告，以及居住在细颗粒物浓度超过当前美国环保署年度标准 12μg/m3 的墨西哥城市的青年人群中 55%存在认知障碍，这使得这一问题成为一个严重的公共卫生问题。必须在全球范围内不断生成有关痴呆症及其与空气污染物关系的流行病学数据，以改进应对与痴呆症和阿尔茨海默病相关的所有挑战的策略。阿尔茨海默病是一种致命疾病，我们目前尚无治愈方法，我们应该通过干预可改变的环境因素来保护我们的公民。
