In one of the more famous public service announcements ever to hit American television, a man cracks open an egg, drops it into a hot frying pan and says “This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?” In another memorable segment, actress Rachael Leigh Cook smashes an egg – and the entire kitchen – with a skillet to illustrate what happens to the brain on heroin.
But what happens to the brain after many years of smoking? New research indicates the picture is no less disturbing. Smoking side effects go beyond the heart and the lungs; they go to the very core of your being—your mind.
In a study of more than 5,000 civil servants living in London, researchers determined that smoking is associated with an increased risk of poor memory. Smoking in middle age was linked not only to a significant memory deficit, but also to a decline in reasoning ability.
The concern, however, isn’t just that smokers might forget where they put their keys or glasses. The researchers noted that cognitive impairment is often a precursor to dementia.
“Cognition in midlife is clinically relevant because research suggests that individuals with mild cognitive impairment progress to clinically diagnosed dementia at an accelerated rate,” they wrote in the study, which appears in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The findings are consistent with earlier studies suggesting smoking is bad for the brain.
In 2004, European scientists determined that “contrary to early case-control studies that suggested smoking protects against Alzheimer disease, recent prospective studies have shown that elderly who smoke may be at increased risk for dementia.”
One year earlier, another report found that if smokers actually live a long life, they may be at risk of “clinically significant cognitive declines.” This was especially true in those smoking more than 20 cigarettes a day.
And last year, Dutch researchers found that smokers are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than nonsmokers or ex-smokers.
The news may come as a surprise for some smokers, who have traditionally tended to be most concerned about developing lung cancer or emphysema from their pack-a-day habit. But tobacco smoke – including secondhand smoke – has been implicated as a bad player in more than a dozen of the health conditions measured by the Navigenics genetic risk assessment.
Take rheumatoid arthritis, for example. Smokers have twice the risk of developing this chronic condition – which can cause crippling joint pain.
If there is any good news in these studies, it is that it is never too late to kick a nicotine habit. In many of the experiments, ex-smokers were found to have better cognitive function than current smokers. In the rheumatoid arthritis research, women who stopped smoking at least a decade before the start of the study did not have an increased risk for it at all.
No egg or frying pan needed. The facts are impressive enough. If you smoke, quit. If you don’t smoke, don’t start.
Josh Oct 29, 2008
Very cool article. This is just further proof that there is absolutely nothing positive about smoking.