Heavy Smoking in Midlife and Long-term Risk of Alzheimer Disease and Vascular Dementia

Heavy Smoking in Midlife and Long-term Risk of Alzheimer Disease and Vascular Dementia

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/archinternmed.2010.393


Minna Rusanen, MD; Miia Kivipelto, MD, PhD; Charles P. Quesenberry Jr, PhD; Jufen Zhou, MS; Rachel A. Whitmer, PhD

Smoking is a factor in the development of several life-threatening diseases but it being one of the factors in dementia later in life is a highly controversial subject. Minna Rusanen, MD; Miia Kivipelto, MD, PhD; Charles P. Quesenberry Jr, PhD; Jufen Zhou, and MS; Rachel A. Whitmer, PhD are trying to determine the risk of dementia, Alzheimer disease (AD), and vascular dementia (VaD) developing several decades later in a large, diverse population. The research team analyzed “data from a multiethnic population-based cohort of 21,123 members of a health care system who participated in a survey between 1978 and 1985.” The cases of dementia, AD, and VaD where recorded from Jan. 1, 1994 to July 31, 2008. The researchers used Multivariate Cox proportional hazards models to find out if there is a relationship between midlife smoking and developing dementia, AD, or VaD later in life. The team found that “A total of 5367 people (25.4%) were diagnosed as having dementia (including 1136 cases of AD and 416 cases of VaD) during a mean follow-up period of 23 years. Results were adjusted for age, sex, education, race, marital status, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, body mass index, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and alcohol use. Compared with nonsmokers, those smoking more than 2 packs a day had an elevated risk of dementia.”
The research proved that heavy smoking in your midlife more than doubles your chances of developing dementia, AD, or VaD. The brain is not immune to the harmful effects of smoking like some believe.
This could affect people who smoke or are thinking about smoking, telling them that there are even more risks that come from smoking could prevent them from starting or convince them to stop or at least increase the chances of that happening.