Warning: Smoking makes men dumber
Brain decline can be reversed and even improved by quitting
You may have seen the I Did It Champix commercial on TV: An ex-smoker is highfived by buddies and adored by his kids, all to the theme from Rocky. It’s a nice carrot to encourage smoking cessation, even if it is pushing another drug.
Now it’s time for the stick: New research shows that smoking accelerates brain decline in men as early as age 45. The same effect was not found in women.
Researchers at University College London led by Sverine Sabia crunched the data from long-term studies of current smokers, ex-smokers and never-smokers, ranging in age from 44 to 69. The subjects were white-collar British civil servants, followed over a 25-year period.
They were tested for shortterm memory, vocabulary, verbal and mathematical reasoning.
In men, smoking was associated with a faster decline over a 10-year period, equivalent to an additional 10 years of aging. However, Sabia writes, “our results show no association between smoking and cognitive decline in women.”
One piece of good news emerging from this study is that men who had quit smoking at least 10 years ago didn’t suffer the same cognitive decline, and “no residual adverse effect of smoking on cognitive decline was observable.”
In fact, long-term quitters scored slightly higher than men who had never smoked. One possible explanation is that when people stop smoking, they often go on a health kick. Food tastes better, so their diet may improve. They may start exercising and adopt other healthy habits.
Ah, but how to get to that blissful “I did it” state shown in the commercial? Nicotine addiction is so powerful that will power alone doesn’t get most people over the finish line. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources to help you quit, both in your doctor’s office and beyond.
An article by Dr. Michael Fiore, of the Centre for Tobacco Research and Intervention at the University of Wisconsin, distinguishes between those who are motivated to quit smoking and those who aren’t.
For the unwilling, Fiore advises doctors to repeatedly discuss the five Rs: “Personally relevant reasons to quit, risks of continued smoking, rewards for quitting, and roadblocks to successful quitting, with repetition of the counselling at subsequent clinic visits.”
For those who do want to quit, he notes that “most medications for smoking cessation (e.g., nicotine patches, gum, lozenges, nasal spray, inhalers and sustained-release bupropion) approximately doubled the odds of achieving abstinence.
The estimated six-month abstinence rate among patients randomly assigned to placebo was about 14 per cent, vs. 19 to 26 per cent across most pharmacotherapies. Fiore also points out that patients may have misconceptions that need to be addressed, such as believing “that nicotine-replacement therapy is as addictive as smoking.” It isn’t.
Of course, every drug has its side effects, and the highly touted smoking cessation aid Champix (varenicline) can have major ones. A study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal by Dr. Sonal Singh found “the use of varenicline among tobacco users was associated with a 72-per-cent increased risk of serious adverse cardiovascular events.” These are still rare events, affecting fewer than one patient in 1,000, but that 72 per cent attracted a lot of attention.
Health Canada recently updated Champix’s labelling to warn of this possible risk. However, they also note that “smoking by itself is a major known risk factor for cardiovascular disease,” so you have to balance the risks.
What about a non-pharmaceutical way to stop smoking?
If watching endless reruns of the Champix commercial doesn’t do the trick, the Internet might help. Conventional wisdom has it that men are less likely than women to reach out for support, but hey, on the Internet you can be anonymous and even androgynous.
Websites such as quitnet. com bring together an online community of would-be quitters for mutual support, and sharing of tips and resources.
It even provides a calculator to see how much money you can save by getting “the Nicodemon” off your back. A basic membership is free.
All the experts agree that quitting is a good idea. Now guys have another reason to do it, before our brains turn to mush.