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In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
Media just loves shitty epidemiology with correlation and no mechanism.
Oh how you reply to most every comment in this post except for the one where I talk about mechanisms (the mechanisms which the Guardian writes about also).
So cities should see a massively higher rate than rural areas, yes?
Shhhh....if you flunk out of grad school, there's always epidemiology.
Possibly, but;
A friend of mine had tinnitus as early as <18 just from growing up in such an environment. I don't think his family even engaged in agriculture.
Cities should see a somewhat higher rate though because even with this acciunted for it sounds like the problem is persistence of noises. And cities have metro systems and noise pollution from construction works
That's a super weird correlation
And "may" is doing a lot of work in that headline
That’s a super weird correlation
Why?
And “may” is doing a lot of work in that headline
Not overly, it's usual scientist caution. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/article-abstract/2851756
They have no mechanism. Poor people live in noisier areas, there are so many variables.
Continued exposure to a certain level of sound seems it would be disconnected from a physical change to motor-nurons.
The headline is meant to suggest causality, without straight up lying. Because that'a what gets views, and sells adds. But the data doesn't remotely suggest it may cause Parkinson's. At most it exacerbates some actual cause, and it only does that very slightly.
Noise consistently activates the stress axis, which governs extremely potent biochemical pathways and thus over time can bring about physical changes easily. Especially to sensitive tissues like nerve tissue. This is well established. It's similar with disturbed sleep. For Parkinson's disease specifically, the Guardian article mentions this:
Existing research has found potential biological pathways that link noise exposure to Parkinson’s disease, largely due to stress responses and disrupted sleep.
"Potential", sure, but altogether (i.e. now also including the prospective (!) decade-long (!) cohort study with over three million (!) participants), the causal link is very probable.
Regarding the magnitude observed here, I admit a hazard ratio of 1.04 (so +4%) is not large. Note, though, that it's "per interquartile increment of 8.9 dB". So going up three quartiles (+27 dB, about 7 times as loud) already gives you somewhat above 12% additional risk.
This is territory where it's getting relevant for personal and societal decision-making—especially when considering that Parkinson's is just one disease of many.
oh yes, this is why all rock stars have Parkinson's.
Seems pop stars should also.
What causes the sound though? Vibrations. Living next to a busy road means exposure to constant tremors, even if low level, which would certainly explains the balance aspect in my opinion.
If this is the actually connection and they know it, then yeah i suppose the headline is being clickbaity and facetious.
However, parkinsons is a brain disease, not just a disease of the nerves - with correlations demonstrated for other environmental traumas (article lists pollution for instance), it seems likely that parkinsons is just the result of a brain traumatised from the combined actions of modern life traumas, which maybe deny it a chance to grow or heal the way it is supposed to.
I guess all i can say is that the reasoning makes sense to me. Human biology is weird, biology in general is weird, and all our civil engineering systems need to be revised anyway for multitudes of reasons, so i am not object to the idea on any basis.
Parkinson's disease is a whole body disorder. Calling it a brain disease is very 1996.
Sound is vibrations.
The brain is neurons. (mostly)
It's only 50% neurons by cell count iiuc