from Hacker News

Transport noise linked to increased risk of dementia, study finds

by adamjb on 9/12/21, 8:07 AM with 82 comments

• by Symbiote on 9/12/21, 9:42 AM

  This looks to be the study.

  It's odd that the Guardian neither links to it, nor even names the researchers or their institution.

  https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n1954

• by ggm on 9/12/21, 8:44 AM

  Very hard to see how they can discount confounding correlates to diesel particulate and other PM10 and finer materials, brake dust &c.

  Not that I don't think the science is good, I'm sure they do and the article says they do, but I struggle to see how you can isolate noise from particulate exposure: they'd have semi identical square law dropoff by distance and volume.

• by jopsen on 9/12/21, 9:15 AM

  Impressive study... as someone who just bought a house 100m from large road, I'm just going to make myself read the last paragraph a few extra times:

  > the best way to maintain brain health was to stay physically and mentally active, eat a healthy balanced diet, and keep your weight, cholesterol and blood pressure in check.

• by paisawalla on 9/12/21, 11:27 AM

  I hope this translates into stronger enforcement against very loud motorcycle exhaust. These seem designed to be unconscionably loud for the purpose of offending as many around as possible.

• by barrenko on 9/12/21, 1:26 PM

  I was hiking once in my home rural area after they "terraformed" a highway through the mountains. The main thought in my mind was - it will never be quiet here again.

• by harperlee on 9/12/21, 8:53 AM

  I also heard somewhere a saying that goes something like ‘windy places have more crazy people’.

• by morninglight on 9/13/21, 1:09 AM

  The negative health outcomes in this study correlate well with those found in lead poisonig studies. Enormous quantities of lead were deposited along our roadways over a period greater than 50 years. It would be very difficult to decouple "transport noise" from the lead pollution that is known to exist along those transport routes.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/herbert-needleman/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.

• by ksaj on 9/12/21, 7:10 PM

  Interestingly I've heard the same thing said about hearing loss. They may or may not be connected. But I think the people here adding diesel and braking particulates into the equation are probably onto something.

  Have they studied if air conditioner or fan sounds have a similar effect?

• by ncmncm on 9/12/21, 12:40 PM

  The most astonishing recent news about dementia surfaced in April, here on HN: A recent Tdap vaccination correlates very, very robustly with a 40% reduction in dementia risk (doi:10.1093/gerona/glab115).

  Nobody knows how to interpret it. 40% is a huge effect size! (I doubt aspirin shows up as more effective against headache.) Is it the tetanus, the diphtheria, the pertussis antigen? Something else they put in the vaccine?

  You can get a Tdap at any pharmacy, on demand. I did.

• by Goety on 9/12/21, 1:50 PM

  Maybe it is toxic air?

  Where is my nobel?

• by numpad0 on 9/12/21, 9:34 AM

  Fun fact: electric cars make larger, not smaller, road noises.

  This is because wind and tire rolling noises take over any engine noise at > 15mph, and because electric vehicles are usually substantially larger and heavier than its counterparts.

  Those whooosh noise of a car passing is mostly the sound of an 1.75t object rolling through displacing air.