Smoking could be most important factor affecting cognition with age: An extensive 13-year European study including 32,000 participants found that smoking accelerates the rate of cognitive impairment in older adults more than other lifestyle factors. Giving up smoking might be the best strategy for maintaining mental clarity.
Lead scientist Mikaela Bloomberg of University College London, UK, stated, “Our findings suggest that among the healthy behaviors we examined, not smoking may be among the most important in terms of maintaining cognitive function.” The study was published in the journal Nature Communications. .
Over 32,000 persons from 14 different European countries who were all 50 years of age or older participated in the survey that the researchers performed. Overall Smoking could be most important factor affecting cognition with age .They spent up to 13 years tracking these people. The participants’ responses were used to categorize them based on how often they smoked and whether or not they exercised vigorously or moderately once a week. They also looked at how often they socialized with friends and family each week and how much alcohol they drank.
The study found that within a 10-year period, people who smoked and had a less sociable lifestyle saw a noticeably faster drop in cognitive skills—up to an 85% higher rate of decline than non-smokers. Furthermore, smokers who favored less social connections seemed to be most affected, as evidenced by a drop in cognition that ranged from one-third to fifty percent throughout the same time period.
“Our study is observational so cannot definitively establish cause and effect, but it suggests smoking might be a particularly important factor influencing the rate of cognitive ageing,” said Bloomberg.
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