British researchers have found that middle-aged male smokers experience a faster decline in cognition and executive function than their non-smoking male counterparts. The good news is that men who had quit smoking for 10 years or more did not experience the same decline.
Data was analyzed from the Whitehall II study that included 5,099 men and 2,137 women with a mean age of 56 years at the first cognitive assessment. Memory, vocabulary, reasoning and fluency were tested throughout the study, and smoking habits were tracked during this time.
Published in the February 6 online journal of the Archives of General Psychiatry, the study also found that smoking in women did not show any correlation with cognitive decline.
You can read the online abstract at www.archpsyc.ama-assn.org.