A study has found that smoking cigarettes can lead to cognitive decline in a person's forties. Research conducted on 136,018 participants over the age of 45 by a team at Ohio State University (OSU) revealed that 10% of smokers who started in midlife or later suffered from memory loss and confusion. Overall, smokers were twice as likely to experience brain problems compared to their peers. Former smokers who quit more than ten years ago faced a 50% increased risk of developing brain issues.
Cognitive problems are rare among middle-aged individuals, as the brain typically begins to lose function only after the age of 65 in most cases. Smoking has been linked to many significant health issues later in life, such as Alzheimer’s disease and cancer, among others. Women are also more prone to experience cognitive decline compared to men.
While smoking has long been associated with an increased risk of cognitive decline, such symptoms in midlife individuals are infrequently reported. For their research published in the Alzheimer's Disease journal, researchers surveyed a sample of approximately 140,000 people about their smoking habits and whether they had experienced memory loss during that time. They found that 8% of individuals who had never smoked reported cognitive decline, while 16% of current smokers reported brain problems and memory loss. Many of these smokers were considered too young to be dealing with such issues.
Fewer than 10% of participants aged 45 to 49 reported brain problems in the survey, and researchers noted that almost all of them were smokers. The reported rate of cognitive issues was similar among survey participants in their fifties. Differences in cognitive decline between smokers and non-smokers significantly diminished with age, although many individuals in that stage may develop diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia for various reasons.
Dr. Jeffrey Wing, the study's lead author and an epidemiology professor at Ohio State University, stated, "The association we observed was most significant in the 45-59 age group, suggesting that quitting smoking at that stage in life may be beneficial for cognitive health." Although quitting smoking can remove some harm, about 12% of survey participants who had quit more than a decade ago reported experiencing cognitive issues. People who quit smoking within the last ten years had a 13% risk of developing cognitive problems, which is slightly higher than those who had quit much earlier.
The study only took self-reported examples of cognitive problems and did not collect any data on the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or dementia. Symptoms of the debilitating condition often begin to appear decades before the patient is diagnosed, and it is rare for a doctor to tell a middle-aged person that they have this condition.
