Smoking Can Shrink Your Brain

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

Smoking shrinks the human brain, and once that brain mass is lost then it’s gone for good, a new study warns.

Brain scans from more than 32,000 people strongly link a history of smoking with a gradual loss of brain volume. In fact, the more packs a person smoked per day, the smaller their brain volume, researchers found.

The study also establishes the potential series of events that leads to smoking-related brain loss, with a genetic predisposition to smoking eventually causing decreased brain volume.

“It sounds bad, and it is bad,” said senior study author Laura Bierut, a professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

“A reduction in brain volume is consistent with increased aging,” Bierut added in a university news release. “This is important as our population gets older, because aging and smoking are both risk factors for dementia.”

The study, published recently…

Continue Reading: https://www.medicinenet.com/smoking_can_shrink_your_brain/news.htm?ecd=mnl_day_121523

ARTICLE SUBMITTED TO MSRN BY Pat France, MSRN Member