Passive Smoke Boosts Dementia Risk

(WebMD)  If your spouse still smokes, here's a new reason to urge him or her to quit.

A new study suggests that people who live with a smoker for more than 30 years are about 30 percent more likely to develop dementia than those who have never lived with a smoker.

The situation is even worse for people who are already at increased risk for dementia due to clogged arteries leading to the brain, says researcher Tad Haight, MA, senior statistician at the University of California at Berkeley.

For such people, living with a smoker for more than 30 years appears to raise dementia risk more than twofold compared with people who never lived with a smoker and don't have blocked brain arteries, he tells WebMD.

The study, presented at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting, included 985 people aged 65 and older who had never smoked.

None had dementia or had suffered a heart attack or stroke or had blocked leg arteries at the start of the study.

Of the total, 495 lived with a smoker for an average of 28 years.

Over the next seven years, 10 percent of the 985 people suffered a heart attack or stroke or developed blockages or clots in their leg arteries. Fifteen percent were diagnosed with dementia.


No Extra Dementia Screening Warranted

Ronald C. Petersen, MD, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Center at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., says that while the study showed a link between passive smoke and dementia, it doesn't prove that it actually caused the memory disorder.

Petersen tells WebMD that people who have lived with a smoker shouldn't rush to their doctor to get tested for dementia.

"From a practical point of view, the thing to do is remove yourself from the situation and follow a healthy lifestyle — things we recommend in any case," Petersen says.

But there's no reason, still, not to use it as ammunition to convince your spouse to kick the habit.

By Charlene Laino
Reviewed by Louise Chang
© 2007, WebMD Inc. All rights reserved

[lonestartnow]

I can't really comment on passive smoke and dementia, so perhaps I shouldn't comment at all, but as co-founder of the LoneStart weight loss and wellness program, we've found that when employers implement the program in the workplace, a number of employees are using the same principles promoted in the program to quit smoking. We do know, based on statistics from the National Cancer Institute, that Envrionmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) or secondhand smoke, is responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths per year among adult non-smokers, and about 300,000 cases per year of lower respiratory tract infections in children up to 18 months of age. In addition, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health remcommends secondhand smoke be regarded as a potential carcinogen. This in itself should give one pause when living with secondhand smoke.

It seems we have a lot of doctors posting on this blog.

If you think it's bull, then why not prove it wrong with fact instead of acting like a child?

[extremophil]

I'm not even a smoker, and I can tell that this is pure bull****

[rohink-2009]

Bull...................

[cathaleen]

This is crazy. My grandparents had dementia and they didn't smoke or drink. I think these doctors are smoking those funny cigarettes.

[momof4sons2]

I tried for years to get my late mother-in-law to quit smoking, but she refused because she "enjoyed smoking and will live her life as she wanted". It was no surprise when lung cancer took her life, but she probably had no clue that she most likely contributed to her hubby's Alzheimers. In her final year of life she was unable to care for him, and to her death bed would no doubt deny any of his health problems was her fault. Now he's in a home and refers to his grand-daughter as "Peg" (the dead wife). So sad he is so confused.