Cigarette smoking in midlife linked to Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Nov 10 announced a proposal to add more scary warnings about cigarette smoking or tobacco use in cigarette packages and advertisements in the hopes that more people will quit smoking and more people will not start smoking.
The FDA proposed to add nine new larger and more noticeable textual warning statements and color graphic images linked with the negative health consequences of cigarette smoking on cigarette packages and advertisements.
The warnings state that cigarettes are additive, tobacco smoke can harm your children, cigarettes cause fatal lung disease, cigarettes cause strokes and heart disease, smoking during pregnancy can harm your baby, smoking can kill you, tobacco smoke causes fatal lung disease in nonsmokers, and quitting smoking now greatly reduces serious risks to your health.
The FDA is soliciting public comments between Nov 12,. 2010 and Jan 11, 2011. The proposed final tobacco control rule is expected to be implemented by Sep 22, 2012 and after that, tobacco companies will no longer be allowed to make cigarettes without new graphic health warnings on the packages for sale or distribution.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a press release that smoking cigarettes kills 443,000 people and cause 30 percent of all cancer deaths each year in the United States. More scary data were posted also on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A range of diseases including cancer, heart disease, lung disease have been found associated with cigarette smoking. Recent studies also found smoking was linked with elevated risk of dementia like Alzheimer's disease.
A study led by Rusanen M. from University of Eastern Finland and colleagues from other organizations suggests cigarette smoking may boost risk of Alzheimer's disease and vascular disease several decades later.
The study, which was published online on Oct 25, 2010 in Archives of Internal Medicine, showed men and women who smoked more than 2 packs a day were twice as likely as those who did not to develop dementia, 2.57 times as likely to have Alzheimer's disease and 2.7 times as likely to develop vascular disease.
Vascular disease includes any condition that affects the circulation system such as peripheral artery disease, aneurysm, renal artery disease, Raynaud's phenomenon, Buerger's disease, peripheral venous disease, varicose veins, venous blood clots, blood clotting disorders, and lymphedema, according to Cleveland Clinic, which has nothing to do with the current study.
For the study, Rusanen et al. analyzed data from a multi-ethnic population-based cohort of 21,123 members of a heath care system who participated in a survey in 1978 and 1985. Diagnose of dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and vascular disease were made in internal medicine, neurology, and neuropsychology between Jan 1, 1994 and July 31, 2008.
During a 23-year follow-up, 5367 people were diagnosed with having dementia including 1136 cases of Alzheimer's disease and 416 cases of vascular disease.
The researchers found the associations between heavy cigarette smoking or tobacco use and significantly elevated risk of Alzheimer's disease and Vascular disease after adjustment for age, gender, education, race, marital status, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, body mass index, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and alcohol intake.
They concluded "heavy (cigarette) smoking in midlife was associated with a greater than 100% increase in risk of dementia, AD, and VaD more than 2 decades later. These results suggest that the brain is not immune to long-term consequences of heavy smoking."
By Jimmy Downs
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