Smoking tobacco products can take its toll on your lungsand leave you gasping for breath. And new research now shows it can also cause extensive brain drain, too!
A Reuters Health report said new research shows that brain function in a group of study participants declined faster by middle age in smokers, compared with their non-smoking peers.
And according to W. M. Monique Verschuren, M.D., and colleagues from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in Bilthoven, the Netherlands, the results indicate that quitting smoking at ANY age may prevent further smoking-induced brain damage!
The researchers followed 1,964 men and women age 43 to 70 years old for five years. They wanted to determine whether smoking was a controllable risk factor for dementia.
In a study conducted five years earlier, the team found that 21.3 percent of study participants who smoked had lower scores on overall brain function, as well as mental speed and flexibility compared to non-smokers.
In the current study, researchers found that memory declined 1.9 times faster in the smokers than in non-smokers! And declines in brain flexibility and function were also 2.4 and 1.7 times faster, respectively, in the smokers!
Whats more, the research team noted that the more cigarettes a person smoked during their livesthe steeper the decline in brain functions.
The researchers concluded that the best way to preserve mental abilities as you age is either to never start smoking or to quitno matter what your age!