Smoking 'rots' brain, says King's College study

A study of 8,800 people over 50 showed high blood pressure and being overweight also seemed to affect the brain, but to a lesser extent.

Cognitive decline becomes more common with ageing and for an increasing number of people interferes with daily functioning and well-being.
Research has repeatedly linked smoking and high blood pressure to a greater risk of cognitive decline and dementia, and this study adds further weight to that evidence.
Cognitive decline as we age can develop into dementia, and unravelling the factors that are linked to this decline could be crucial for finding ways to prevent the condition.

According to the BBC, a new study of more than 8,800 people over age 50 found a correlation between smoking and damage to memory, learning and reasoning in the brain.
While decreased brain function is a natural sign of aging, this data suggests that degradation is accelerated by smoking. s brain.
From the study: An important outcome of the present study was the consistent association observed between smoking and low global cognitive and specific memory and executive scores at 4-year and 8-year follow-ups.
While each factor -- smoking, high blood-pressure and weight -- had its own effect, the study showed that cumulative brain health is often determined by a number of different criteria.
While this study addresses long-term effects of smoking, the inhalation of cigarette smoke often has some much more obvious negative side-effects.
According to the National Institutes of Health, smoking causes about 443,000 deaths each year and is responsible for 90 percent of lung cancer in men and 80 percent of lung cancer in women.