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Are environmental factors affecting the way we age? Leading scientists say yes.

The science of chronic diseases associated with aging, particularly Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, shows that they are related to a number of features of modern society. A new report, "Environmental Threats to Healthy Aging", put out by Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility and Science and Environmental Health Network, exposes the lifetime influences of environmental risk factors such as socioeconomic status and exposures to environmental chemicals on those diseases and their underlying pathologic mechanisms. On Oct 20, 2008, about 75 CHE Partners and friends joined CHE and our panel of expert speakers for a call exploring this pressing topic.

Featured speakers included:

• Jill Stein, MD, President, Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities
• Ted Schettler, MD, MPH, Science Director, Science and Environmental Health Network
  
• Peter Whitehouse, MD, PhD, Professor of Neurology, Case Western Reserve University, Author of The Myth of Alzheimer's
  

The call was moderated by Michael Lerner, President of Commonweal. The call was recorded for archival purposes; the MP3 file will be available for downloading within a few days.

"Every civilization creates the conditions for its own diseases." -René Dubos