Environmental Substances Associated with Alzheimer’s Disease—A Scoping Review

Hanna Maria Elonheimo, Helle Raun Andersen, Andromachi Katsonouri and Hanna Tolonen
Additional contact information
Hanna Maria Elonheimo: Department of Public Health and Welfare, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Mannerheimintie 166, 00271 Helsinki, Finland
Helle Raun Andersen: Clinical Pharmacology, Pharmacy and Environmental Medicine, Department of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5000 Odense C, Denmark
Andromachi Katsonouri: Human Biomonitoring and Control of Industrial Products Laboratory, State General Laboratory, Ministry of Health, P.O. Box 28648, Nicosia 2081, Cyprus
Hanna Tolonen: Department of Public Health and Welfare, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Mannerheimintie 166, 00271 Helsinki, Finland

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 22, 1-22

Abstract: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, prevalent in approximately 50–70% of the dementia cases. AD affects memory, and it is a progressive disease interfering with cognitive abilities, behaviour and functioning of the person affected. In 2015, there were 47 million people affected by dementia worldwide, and the figure was estimated to increase to 75 million in 2030 and to 132 million by 2050. In the framework of European Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU), 18 substances or substance groups were prioritized for investigation. For each of the priority substances, a scoping document was prepared. Based on these scoping documents and complementary review of the recent literature, a scoping review of HBM4EU-priority substances which might be associated with AD was conducted. A possible association between risk of AD and pesticides was detected. For mercury (Hg), association is possible but inconsistent. Regarding cadmium (Cd) and arsenic (As), the results are inconsistent but inclined towards possible associations between the substances and the risk of disease. The evidence regarding lead (Pb) was weaker than for the other substances; however, possible associations exist. Although there is evidence of adverse neurological effects of environmental substances, more research is needed. Environmental chemical exposure and the related hazards are essential concerns for public health, and they could be preventable.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease (AD); chemical exposure; pesticides; mercury (Hg); cadmium (Cd); arsenic (As); lead (Pb); HBM4EU (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/22/11839/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/22/11839/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:22:p:11839-:d:677111

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().