New research shows faster cognitive decline in male smokers
Most people know smoking can cause lung cancer, other cancers and illness. It can also cause Cerebral thrombosis where the vessels to the brain can become blocked which can result in stroke, collapse and paralysis. Damage to the brains blood supply is also an important cause of dementia.
Now researchers from the University College of London have found that male smokers have cognitive decline faster than males who do not smoke.
Researchers examined over 5,000 men and women from the Whitehall II study, which surveyed the health of British civil servants.
Researcher examined each participant's performance on various tests; memory, verbal skills and reasoning skills over a span of ten years. When the study had began average age of participant's was 56 years. Participant's had two subsequent assessments over the ten year span.
The study had demonstrated smoking had a damaging effect of cognitive aging as early as 45 years old.
According to the study over that time period the average 55 year old male had a decline of 0.34 on a standardized 1-point scale for global cognition along with a decline of 0.28 in memory and 0.39 in executive function z-score.
Dr. Severine Sabia,PhD, studies lead author, stated that smoking had appeared to speed up the cognitive process, making men function mentally, as if they were ten years older.
For example purposes she had cited “a 50-year-old male smoker shows a similar cognitive decline as a 60-year-old male never-smoker.”
However, the brain changes were not inevitably permanent. For men that had stopped smoking over ten years prior to the test had performed as well as men who never smoked. However, those who gave up smoking less than ten years prior to the beginning of cognitive testing did not perform much better than men who did not quit smoking.
Even though smoking had appeared to decline men's brains the researchers did not find a similar link between smoking and cognitive decline in women. This could be accounted for by two reasons according to Dr. Sabia; women in the age group smoked less than men or because there were less women in the study than men.
Director of the Alzheimer's Disease Center at the University of California – Davis, Dr. Charles DeCarli has a different theory noting that differences in cardiovascular disease could also explain the studies findings that men displayed more cognitive decline linked to smoking than women.
Dr. DeCarli, states "Men have more heart disease and greater stroke risk than women do up until about age 70 or so. Part of that is related to lifestyle, men of this age group often smoked more than women did.”
Researchers note that smoking's long-term effects on mental function are probably underestimated since smokers are most likely to die from other health issues before they have a chance to develop dementia.
Researchers caution that the cohort study covered a wide socioeconomic range but may not generalize the entire population, especially blue-collar workers and the unemployed.
Dr. Sabia and associates also added "Cognitive tests and age-specific norms for detecting 'abnormal' cognitive decline do not yet exist.” "Thus, it is difficult to quantify the clinical significance of our findings."
More research is required to find out the reason why there was a difference between men and women in this study and to look into the possible mechanisms that may link declining brain function to smoking according to Dr. Sabia.
Nicotine patches, gum and pills for smoking cessation are all available to help you kick the habit but they do carry side effects from mild to severe. Hypnotherapy has been noted to be effective for smoking cessation.
One of the largest scientific comparison for smoking cessation, hypnotherapy was shown to be the most effective when it comes to kicking the habit.
A meta-analysis, statistically combine findings of over 600 studies of 72,000 people from the United States and Europe in order to compare various methods to quit smoking. On average, hypnosis was shown to be more than times effective as nicotine replacement methods and 15 times more effective than quitting smoking on their own. (New Scientist 10/10/92).
Other studies to show hypnotherapy effectiveness for smoking cessation can be viewed at Non-smoking Center research studies of efficacy.
In or around Detroit:
15403 Baylis Street
Detroit
313-397-1464
A & L Chiropractic Center (hypnotherapist on staff)
24281 Middlebelt Road
Farmington Hills
248-477-3977
Comments