The Ohio State University study is considered the first to examine the link between smoking and cognitive decline in a single question. Study participants were asked if they experienced worsening or more frequent memory loss and/or confusion.
All data for the study were obtained from the 2019 National Behavioral Risk Surveillance System. In total, the experts analyzed information on 136,018 people aged 45 and over. Of these, 11% reported subjective cognitive decline.
At the same time, subjective cognitive decline occurred 1.9 times more in current smokers than in nonsmokers. For people who quit smoking, those who quit less than a decade ago had a 1.5 times higher prevalence of smoking than non-smokers. People who quit smoking more than a decade before the start of the study had a slightly higher prevalence of subjective cognitive decline than nonsmokers.
The results of this study were published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Source: Ferra
