Scientists from the University of California, Davis, USA, have found a link between air pollution and a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

The team set up a rodent enclosure near a traffic tunnel in Northern California, to mimic what humans might experience from traffic-related air pollution.

The findings, in Environmental Health Perspectives, revealed that exposure to air pollution accelerated Alzheimer’s disease in animals who expressed the risk gene and also in wild-type rats.

“Our study is relatively unique in that animals were exposed to ambient traffic-related air pollution in real time over the course of their lifetime,” said study leading author, Dr. Pamela Lein