From particulates to pathways: environmental exposures and their impact on Alzheimer's disease

Authors: Liu B, Ahmad MA, Abbas G, Ahmed U, Javed R, Ali I, Ao Q, Deng X

Year: 2025 Aug 8

Category: Environmental Health, Neuroscience, Review Article

Journal: Brain Research

DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2025.149880

URL: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40784621/

Abstract

Overview

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a leading cause of cognitive decline and mortality, with its neurobiological mechanisms and etiology still not fully understood. Emerging evidence highlights the significant role of environmental pollutants in AD onset and progression. This review examines the impact of environmental compartments—air, water, soil, and pollutants—on AD pathology.

  • Prolonged exposure to particulate matter (PM2.5), heavy metals (lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic), and engineered nanomaterials (silver, iron oxide, silica) increases AD risk.
  • Other aggravating factors include obesity, smoking, infections, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and critically, electromagnetic fields (EMFs), which may exacerbate AD.
  • These exposures potentially drive key pathological features such as amyloid-beta plaque deposition and tau protein aggregation.

Findings

By analyzing recent studies, this review highlights the intersection between environmental exposure and AD progression, emphasizing how such factors can accelerate the disease. For instance:

  • EMF exposure can result in the dysregulation of calcium homeostasis, oxidative stress, and inflammation, all of which are linked to neuronal damage and cognitive impairment in AD.
  • Animal and human studies show that EMF exposure accelerates the accumulation of amyloid-beta plaques and leads to neurodegenerative changes in the brain, reinforcing the link between EMFs and AD risk.
  • Combined environmental exposures, such as heavy metals and smoking, exhibit synergistic effects that significantly amplify neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, and risk of AD.

Conclusion

This review provides practical guidelines to mitigate these environmental risks, with the goal of reducing AD incidence. The multifactorial role of pollutants, particularly EMFs, in AD highlights the urgency for further research and public health interventions. These collective findings advance our understanding of AD's environmental contributions and emphasize the need for comprehensive risk reduction strategies.

Alzheimer's disease environmental pollution neurodegeneration electromagnetic fields heavy metals oxidative stress amyloid-beta
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