Smoking may NOT increase risk of Alzheimer's

Smoking may be deadly but it does not cause Alzheimer's, a new study has found.

It has been proven that tobacco smoking increases the risk for cancer, heart disease, diabetes and even blindness.

Previous studies have described smoking as a modifiable risk factor for the incurable disease.

But a new study by the University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging demonstrated that smoking is not associated with a higher risk of dementia.

The findings were based examining the risk of dementia associated with lifetime smoking on 531 individuals who did not have any cognitive impairment at the start with a high prevalence of current and former smoking. 

Previous studies have described smoking as a modifiable risk factor for the incurable disease. But a new study by the University of Kentucky found smoking does not increase risk of dementia (file image)

Previous studies have described smoking as a modifiable risk factor for the incurable disease. But a new study by the University of Kentucky found smoking does not increase risk of dementia (file image)

Dr Erin Abner, an associate professor, said: 'To be clear, we are absolutely not promoting smoking in any way.

'We're saying that smoking doesn't appear to cause dementia in this population.'

Explaining how previous studies may have led to the conclusion she added: 'The underlying data (in those studies) was solid, but the analysis didn't take into account the idea of competing risk of mortality, which we felt was an important factor to consider in this case since smoking is so strongly associated with earlier death.

She added competing risk is a complicated concept which can change how data is 'counted' in a study and ultimately change study conclusions.

Dr Abner said: 'If, for example, we were studying cancer deaths and smoking, and one of the people in the study died from heart disease, what do we do with that person's data?'

'That person can't possibly die from cancer since a competing event (death from heart disease) has occurred.

'If we ignore that information, the data are not telling the right story'

'In the case of our study, if smoking kills someone before they show signs of dementia, how can you accurately count that person?

'We think that those deaths should be accounted for when predicting dementia risk.'

The study examined longitudinal data from the 531 initially cognitively-normal people who were part of the SBCoA BRAiNS study, which has followed hundreds of volunteers an average of more than 11 years to explore the effects of ageing on cognition.

The mean age at enrollment was 73.2 and nearly two thirds - 63.1 per cent - were women and highly educated.

It used a statistical method called Competing Risk Analysis to determine whether there was a connection between smoking and dementia

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