Dated April 2, 2023
Annabelle
Photo: masternawa/stock.adobe.com
Almost every fourth person smokes in this country – and the trend is falling. Because more and more people decide to quit smoking. And that pays off. Quitting smoking reduces the risk of dementia, among other things. If, on the other hand, you “only” smoke less, the risk increases.
The decision to give up smoking and quit smoking can have a number of positive effects. In addition to financial and social factors, health aspects in particular play an important role. Because the risk of cancer, heart attacks, strokes and other diseases decreases when you say goodbye to cigarettes and the like. What’s more: stopping smoking can also reduce the risk of dementia. However, the principle of “all or nothing” applies here, because less smoking does more harm than good, as researchers have now discovered.
Quitting smoking reduces the risk of dementia
Scientists from the Samsung Medical Center at Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine in Korea have investigated how reducing cigarette consumption or even stopping smoking affects the risk of dementia. For that they have in one Cohort study used data from more than 789,000 adult smokers, most of them men. At the beginning of the observation period, 80 percent of the participants had been smokers for more than 20 years. During the study period, 15 percent stopped smoking, 22 percent reduced their consumption and 16 percent increased it.
After around six years, almost 12,000 new dementia diseases had developed among the participants. It was found that patients who stopped smoking developed dementia less often than those who continued to smoke. Accordingly, quitting smoking reduced the risk of dementia by an average of 8 percent (6 percent for Alzheimer’s, 16 percent for vascular dementia). While there were only minor changes in older participants, these were more pronounced in younger subjects.
Less smoking with negative consequences?
The surprise: If tobacco consumption was only reduced during the study, the risk of dementia even increased. According to the results, patients who smoked between 20 and 50 percent less had a 6 percent higher risk than people with unchanged smoking behavior. A possible reason: In general, the reduction would result in fewer cigarettes being consumed, but instead smokers would inhale more deeply to keep the nicotine level at a higher level.
“Therefore, smoking cessation and not smoking reduction should be the focus of efforts to reduce the burden of dementia,” the researchers explain. The reduction is nevertheless an important first step.
Further studies with a longer follow-up period are needed to confirm the results regarding the risk of dementia associated with smoking cessation.
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