July 13, 2025 11:23 pm (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
'Canada is not your playground': Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun's threat to Kapil Sharma | 'Don't jump into conclusions, wait for final report of Air India crash probe': Civil Aviation Minister | IIM Calcutta student alleges rape at boys' hostel amid uproar over Kasba incident | Preliminary investigation report shows both engines of crashed Air India flight shut down seconds after take-off | Pardon by Yemeni national's family is only hope for Indian nurse Nimisha Priya: Activist | S Jaishankar likely to visit China this weekend for the first time in 5 years: Report | 'Show me one photo of Indian damage': Ajit Doval slams foreign media over Op Sindoor reportage | Tennis player Radhika Yadav was shot four times by her father: Autopsy report | Pakistani actress Humaira Asghar, whose decomposed body was recovered from Karachi flat, died 9 months ago: Report | Radhika Yadav's death: Father spent 2.5 crore on tennis
Smoking

Quit smoking now to avoid cognitive decline among older adults

| @indiablooms | Jul 08, 2024, at 11:08 pm

Smoking may be among the most important lifestyle factors affecting how quickly our cognitive skills decline as we age, suggests a new study led by UCL researchers.

The study, published in Nature Communications, analysed data from 32,000 adults aged 50 or over from 14 European countries who responded to surveys over 10 years.

The researchers investigated how rates of cognitive decline might differ among cognitively-healthy older adults with different combinations of health-related behaviours, including smoking, physical activity, alcohol consumption and social contact.

Cognitive function was assessed according to participants’ performance in memory and verbal fluency tests. Participants were grouped into lifestyles based on whether they smoked or not, whether they did both moderate and vigorous physical activity at least once per week, whether they saw friends and family at least weekly, and whether they drank more or the same/less than two alcoholic drinks per day (men) or one drink per day (women).

They found that cognitive decline was faster for lifestyles that included smoking, while cognitive decline was generally similar for all non-smoking lifestyles. Smoking lifestyles had cognitive scores that declined up to 85% more over 10 years than non-smoking lifestyles.

The exception was smokers who had a healthy lifestyle in all other areas – that is, they did regular exercise, drank alcohol in moderation, and socialised regularly. This group had a rate of cognitive decline similar to non-smokers.

Lead author Dr Mikaela Bloomberg (UCL Behavioural Science & Health) said: “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.

“Previous evidence suggests individuals who engage in more healthy behaviours have slower cognitive decline; however, it was unclear whether all behaviours contributed equally to cognitive decline, or if there were specific behaviours driving these results.

“Our findings suggest that among the healthy behaviours we examined, not smoking may be among the most important in terms of maintaining cognitive function.

“For people who aren’t able to stop smoking, our results suggest that engaging in other healthy behaviours such as regular exercise, moderate alcohol consumption and being socially active may help offset adverse cognitive effects associated with smoking.”

The researchers accounted for a range of factors that might have influenced the findings, including age, gender, country, education, wealth, and chronic conditions.

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.