Smoking degrades cognitive performance

Hypertension and type 2 diabetes are known to have a negative impact on brain health. But smokers aged 60 and over, even if they have escaped these two diseases very much linked to smoking, risk not being spared from cognitive decline. A study showing that, regardless of their other health problems, the more people smoke the less they perform on cognitive tests from a certain age will be presented at the American Stroke Association which is due to take place from February 8 in New Orleans.

“A person who smokes regularly but who is otherwise in good health is still at risk of having poor brain health”, announces Neal S. Parikh, author of this study which was conducted between 2011 and 2014 with 3,244 participants from an average age of 69 years. Among them, 77% suffered from high blood pressure, 24% from type 2 diabetes and 23% were smokers. Each participant took four tests to measure their cognitive abilities, including word memory, thinking fluency, information processing speed and attention span.

An influence of smoking on cognitive performance

As a result, higher levels of cotinine – markers of smoking – were associated with worse scores on processing speed, attention and working memory but with normal scores on word memory or language fluency. And their score in the interpretation of numerical symbols was equivalent to that of people suffering from high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes.

“We were surprised to find that smoking does not act in synergy with high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes on cognitive performance but that it alone has an influence on them. This means that smoking is bad for brain health, points out Neal S. Parikh, even if this study cannot establish a true causal relationship between smoking and cognitive decline”. Before concluding that “stopping smoking should be an urgent priority for smokers of all ages”.