Midlife Smoking Causes Memory Problems

Lighting Up In Middle Age Linked To Cognitive Problems, Dementia And Loss Of Memory

(WebMD)  Smoking in midlife results in poor memory and makes it harder to think and learn, according to research published in the June 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

What's more, developing cognitive problems in your 30s, 40s, and 50s may speed the onset of dementia. Smoking damages blood vessels, including those in the brain. Scientists recently concluded that smoking is a risk factor for dementia.

However, the link between smoking and cognitive problems has been hard to determine because few study patients return for follow-up visits or they die of smoking-related diseases before the research is completed.

For the current study, Severine Sabia, MSc, of the Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale in Villejuif, France, and colleagues analyzed data from London-based civil servants aged 35 to 55 first enrolled in the Whitehall II study between 1985 and 1988. The study participants answered questions about their smoking habits and completed memory, reasoning, vocabulary, and verbal fluency tests on two separate occasions in 1997-1999 and then five years later.

The first round of cognitive testing showed that smokers were more likely to have the lowest scores than those who never lit up. "Smoking in middle age is associated with memory deficit and decline in reasoning abilities," the study authors say in a news release.

Ex-smokers tested better than current smokers on vocabulary and verbal fluency tests and were less likely to have cognitive deficits in memory.

Those who kicked the habit before the study started or during the 17 years of follow-up also reported drinking less alcohol and eating more fruits and vegetables.

However, those who smoked when the study started were less likely to take the cognitive tests and more likely to die after the 17 years of follow-up.

"Our results... suggest that the association between smoking and cognition, even in late midlife, could be underestimated because of higher risk of death and non-participation in cognitive tests among smokers," the authors say.

[rushman71]

brianbwb: Dimwits like you ignore the fact that CBS allows atheist pigs to spew as much vulgarity as possible. Keep your non-beliefs to your self!!!

[eds1980]

It seems likely that people who never smoked or have quit are much more likely to have had better memory and cognitive function to start with, and this article seems to suggest that smokers did more poorly on the test (which would be expected if they were less able to start with), not that their decline in performance was much greater. That more of them were dead is not surprising at all, given their elevated risks for heart disease and lung cancer (as well as the fact that people with generally unhealthy lifestyle habits are more likely to smoke). But cigarettes do help prevent Parkinson''s and endometriosis....

[bluestardad]

MEDICAL FIELD

CURE SOMETHING!

ANYTHING!

PROVE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE YOU ARE WORTH THE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS WE SPEND ON YOU EACH YEAR!

QUIT MAKING MONEY OFF TREATING ILLNESS AND CURE IT!

OTHERWISE YOU ARE JUST A BUNCH OF BEGGARS AND THIEVES!

AMERICA DEMAND MORE!

STAND UP OR SHUT UP!

[grammawhamma]

Those new commercials on TV put out by becomeanex (or something to that effect) are very downgrading. They show people acting like idiots and disfunctional just because they don''t have a cigarette. Do any other smokers find these commercials very insulting?

Now since smokers memories are destroyed...I guess we can say "What do you mean smoking is dangerous??? I never heard that before! What surgeon general warning?"

[brianbwb-2009]

"D.a.r.n is a bleeped word??? Geeez CBS!" Posted by GrammaWhamma

Well, you know how the religious right feels about holey socks, that you shouldn''t be allowed to dimiunish their "holiness."

On to subject, CBS should be mindful that this anti tobacco bias could begin to backfire, because the constant drumbeat of anti smoking messages will soon be seen as "establishment propaganda" of the same sort that brought us Iraq, and many, especially the young will rebel.

I personally smoke blended tobacco, in my own private space, and don''t need the agitprop. Even my non smoking friends generally say the message is being pounded in an irritating manner.

[denn034]

What did CBS say about smoking? Can''t remember! Maybe it''ll come to me while I''m smoking!

[timdgrim]

I''m sorry...I forgot why I wrote this.

Guess it gives us something else to sue the tobacco companies over. And the government still allows this poison to be sold.

[hypnotoad72]

I thought simply being in midlife led to memory loss. Oh well; must''ve forgotten...

[haoli25]

Whut?

[grammawhamma]

D.a.r.n is a bleeped word??? Geeez CBS!

[grammawhamma]

*** it....where did I put my lighter?