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Smokers
are more likely to develop Dementia
Newswise — People who
smoke are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s
disease or dementia than nonsmokers or those
who smoked in the past, according to a study
published in the September 4, 2007, issue of
Neurology®, the medical journal of the
American Academy of Neurology.
The study followed
nearly 7,000 people age 55 and older for an
average of seven years. Over that time, 706
of the participants developed dementia.
People who were current smokers at the time
of the study were 50 percent more likely to
develop dementia than people who had never
smoked or past smokers.
Smoking could affect
the risk of dementia through several
mechanisms, according to study author
Monique Breteler, MD, PhD, of Erasmus
Medical Center in Rotterdam, the
Netherlands, and member of the American
Academy of Neurology.
“Smoking increases the
risk of cerebrovascular disease, which is
also tied to dementia,” Breteler said.
“Another mechanism could be through
oxidative stress, which can damage cells in
the blood vessels and lead to hardening of
the arteries. Smokers experience greater
oxidative stress than nonsmokers, and
increased oxidative stress is also seen in
Alzheimer’s disease.”
Oxidative stress occurs
when the body has too many free radicals,
which are waste products produced by
chemical reactions in the body.
“Antioxidants in the
diet can eliminate free radicals, and
studies have shown that smokers have fewer
antioxidants in their diets than
nonsmokers,” Breteler said.
The researchers also
looked into how smoking affects the risk of
developing Alzheimer’s disease for people
who have the gene that increases the risk of
Alzheimer’s, called apolipoprotein E4, or
APOEε4. They found that smoking did not
increase the risk of Alzheimer’s for those
with the APOEε4 gene. But for those without
the APOEε4 gene, smoking increased the risk
of Alzheimer’s. Current smokers without the
Alzheimer’s gene were nearly 70 percent more
likely to develop Alzheimer’s than
nonsmokers or past smokers without the
Alzheimer’s gene.
The study was supported
by Erasmus Medical Center and several
governmental health organizations in the
Netherlands.
The American Academy of
Neurology, an association of more than
20,000 neurologists and neuroscience
professionals, is dedicated to improving
patient care through education and research.
A neurologist is a doctor with specialized
training in diagnosing, treating and
managing disorders of the brain and nervous
system such as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease,
epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple
sclerosis.
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