To better understand how day-to-day exposures to chemicals earlier in life can contribute to conditions like Alzheimer’s disease later on, researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University, University of California San Francisco, and Emory University received an $11 million National Institutes of Health grant. The study will use almost four decades of data pulled from blood and urine tests to measure the levels of pesticides, metals, and other elements among a 5,000-person sample, then match those results with MRI scans and cognitive tests to flag what potentially could contribute to increased risk of neurologic disorders.
“We are striving toward understanding the origins of increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. If there’s an environmental link, we could encourage reduction of environmental exposures in early- and mid-life, decades before cognitive decline and other dementia symptoms,” said the study’s principal investigator, Aimin Chen, MD, PhD, a professor of Epidemiology at Penn. “The findings may also inform environmental health policymaking to potentially reduce instances of brain aging disorders.”
While not a children’s environmental health study, it shows how our researchers are looking at exposure throughout life to improve the health of society. Read the full article from Penn Medicine.