The health risks associated with smoking — lung cancer, and cardiovascular diseases such as stroke and heart attack — are well known. Now scientists may have unveiled another health risk of smoking.
A new study published in the Oct. 25, 2010, online edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine has documented a correlation between smoking and an increased risk of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.
Although smoking is the single biggest risk factor for developing lung cancer, there were hypothesized associations between smoking and the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s but little empirical data. Drs. Minna Rusanen and Miia Kivipelto examined data from a multiethnic population who participated in a study between 1978 and 1975. Diagnoses of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and vascular dementia made in internal medicine, neurology and neuropsychology were collected from Jan. 1, 1994, to July 31, 2008.
The findings revealed that 5,367 people (25.4 percent) were diagnosed as having dementia (including 1,136 cases of Alzheimer’s disease and 416 cases of vascular dementia). More startling was, even after controlling for age, sex, education, race, marital status, hypertension, body mass index, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and alcohol use, compared with nonsmokers, those smoking more than one pack a day were 37 percent more likely to be plagued with dementia. Those that smoked between one and two packs a day were 44 percent more likely to develop dementia. –torrance stephens, ph.d.
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