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Alzheimer's, Dementia & Mental Health
Smokers in Study Were 50 Percent More Likely to Get
Alzheimer’s or Dementia
Study of 7,000 people 55 and over for seven years
 Sept. 4, 2007 – A study that followed 7,000 people
age 55 and older for seven years has determined that people who smoke
are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease or dementia than
nonsmokers or those who smoked in the past.
Over the seven years of the study, 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.
The study is published in the September 4, 2007,
issue of Neurology, the medical journal 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 nonsmokers, and increased oxidative stress is also seen in
Alzheimer’s disease.”
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, or APOEε4.
They found that smoking did not increase the risk
of Alzheimer’s for those with the APOEε4 gene. But for those without the
APOEε4 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.
The study was supported by Erasmus Medical Center
and several governmental health organizations in the Netherlands.
The American Academy of Neurology, an association
of more than 20,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is
dedicated to improving patient care through education and research. A
neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing,
treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as
stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple
sclerosis.
For more information about the American Academy of
Neurology, visit
http://www.aan.com.
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