Studies have shown that smoking cigarettes can lead to cognitive decline in people in their 40s.
A study of 136,018 participants aged 45 and over by a team from Ohio State University (OSU) found that 10% of middle-aged and older smokers suffered from memory loss and confusion. Overall, the smoker was twice as likely to experience brain problems than smokers his age.
You can stop decline by quitting bad habits. A former smoker who quit smoking more than 10 years ago has a 50% higher risk of brain problems than he does and half that of current smokers.
Cognitive problems in middle-aged people are rare because in most cases the brain does not begin to lose function until after age 65. However, smoking is linked to many important health problems later in life, including Alzheimer’s disease and cancer. Women are also more likely than men to suffer from cognitive decline.
Researchers have found that smoking can cause cognitive decline as early as age 45 (file photo)
Smoking has long been associated with an increased risk of developing cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, but these problems are rare in middle-aged people.
for their research Alzheimer’s Journalresearchers surveyed a sample of about 140,000 about their smoking habits and whether they felt they were suffering from memory loss during the period of smoking.
They found that 8% of people who had never smoked in their life experienced cognitive decline.
Meanwhile, 16% of current smokers report suffering from brain problems and memory loss.
Many of these smokers were of an age considered too young to deal with these issues.
Fewer than 10% of participants between the ages of 45 and 49 reported brain problems at the time of the study.
The rate of reported cognitive problems was similar among study participants in their fifties.
Differences in cognitive decline between smokers and nonsmokers decrease significantly in older age, because at that time many people develop conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia for a variety of reasons. is.
“The associations we saw were most pronounced in the 45- to 59-year-old group, suggesting that smoking cessation in this age group may benefit cognitive health,” said the study. said Jeffrey Wing, Ph.D., senior author and professor of epidemiology at OSU.
However, quitting smoking can reverse some of the damage. Approximately 12% of study participants who quit smoking more than 10 years ago reported cognitive problems.
This is a 50% increase from the baseline group of nonsmokers and a significant decrease compared to nonsmokers.
Those who quit within the last 10 years had a 13% risk of developing the disease, slightly higher than those who quit long-term.
Jenna Rajczyk, an OSU doctoral student who led the study, said: “These findings suggest that the time since smoking cessation is important and may be related to cognitive outcomes. There is a possibility.
“This is a simple assessment that can be easily performed routinely, and at a younger than normal age, we see cognitive decline rising to diagnostic levels for Alzheimer’s disease or dementia,” she continued.
“This is not a focused series of questions.
This study only included examples of self-reported cognitive problems and did not collect data on clinical diagnoses of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia.
Signs of a devastating condition often begin to appear decades before the patient is ready for diagnosis, and middle-aged people are rarely told of the condition by their doctors.
Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of dementia in the United States. Approximately 6.5 million Americans over the age of 65 are affected.
The number of Americans afflicted with this condition is expected to double over the next 20 years.
There is no known cure for this condition, and treatments available to slow disease progression are sparse.
