Heavy smoking between ages 50 and 60 can double the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia twenty years later. This was the finding of a research published in the United States, carried out by Finnish doctors.
The Doctor. Minna Rusanen of the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio teaching hospital and colleagues analyzed the medical data of 21,123 members of a care system who participated in a survey conducted between 1978 and 1985, when these members were between 50 and 60 years.
Diagnoses of Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia were made between January 1994 and the end of July 2008, when patients were on average 71.6 years old, according to this statement in the online edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine, published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
In total, 5367 participants (25.4%) of this study were diagnosed with some form of dementia during a 23-year follow-up period, with 1136 of them being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and 416 with vascular dementia.
two packs a day
Among patients, those who smoked more than two packs of cigarettes a day by the age of fifty were at a very high risk of suffering from dementia and especially Alzheimer’s, compared to non-smokers.
Former smokers in their fifties or those who smoked less than half a pack of cigarettes did not appear to be at greater risk. According to the researchers, the relationship between smoking and dementia did not vary according to race or gender.
Smoking is a well-known risk factor for stroke and may also contribute to the risk of vascular dementia with the same mechanisms. In addition, tobacco contributes to the stress and inflammation of the vessels, which are believed to play a key role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
Controversy
However, “the relationship between smoking and Alzheimer’s disease… is the subject of controversy, as some research suggests that smoking minimizes the risk of cognitive decline,” report the authors of this release.
Finally, they conclude that their study “is the first to establish the relationship between the high risk of developing dementia in the long term, and therefore Alzheimer’s, in people who smoked heavily between 50 and 60 years old, and that in an extended multi-ethnic group.
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