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Smokers Are More At Risk of
Alzheimer's Disease
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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 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 non-smokers, and
increased
oxidative stress is also seen in Alzheimer’s disease,” Breteler said.
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. They found that smoking did not
increase the risk of Alzheimer’s for those with the E4 gene. But for those
without the 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.
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