People who are exposed to secondhand smoke may be more likely to have cognitive impairments than their peers, discount cigarettes smokers, a new study showed.
This study doesn’t prove that secondhand smoke exposure causes cognitive impairment, but it does show that cognitive impairment was more common among nonsmokers and former smokers with high levels of cotinine, a nicotine-related chemical, in their saliva samples.
The study included 4,809 adults of 50 year-old and older from England. They provided saliva samples and took various tests of mental skills, including memory and attention, between 1998 and 2002. Participants were considered cognitively impaired if their overall test score was in the bottom 10% of the group.
Never smokers with the highest salivary levels of cotinine were 70% more likely to be cognitively worsen than never smokers with the lowest salivary levels of cotinine. Former smokers with the highest salivary cotinine levels were 32% more likely to have cognitive impairment than former smokers with the lowest salivary cotinine levels.
Researchers found that not only secondhand smoke can cause cognitive impairment but also age, sex, education, diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease play a very important role in cognitive decline.
This study raises the strong possibility that secondhand smoke causes cognitive decline, but further research is needed to establish a causal effect.
Source: Ourcigarettesnews ®
Tobacco Facts
Tobacco is an annual or bi-annual growing 1-3 meters tall with large sticky leaves that contain nicotine. Native to the Americas, tobacco has a long history of use as a shamanic inebriant and stimulant. It is extremely popular and well-known for its addictive potential.
Nicotiana rustica leaves.
Nicotiana rustica leaves have a nicotine content as high as 9%, whereas Nicotiana tabacum (common tobacco) leaves contain about 1 to 3%
A cigar is a tightly rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco which is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Sumatra, Philippines, and the Eastern United States.
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the fresh leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide, and in the form of nicotine tartrate it is used in some medicines. In consumption it may be in the form of cigarettes smoking, snuffing, chewing, dipping tobacco, or snus.
Cigarettes are smoking products consumed by people and made out of cut tobacco leaves. Cigars are typically composed completely of whole-leaf tobacco. A cigarette has smaller size, composed of processed leaf, and white paper wrapping. The term cigarette refers to a tobacco cigarette too but it can apply to similar devices containing other herbs, such as cannabis.
