不管其他健康状况如何，吸烟都会损害大脑健康

People with higher levels of a nicotine byproduct in their blood scored lower on a test for a wide range of brain functions, regardless of whether they had other health conditions known to affect cognition, 根据一项新的研究.

Having high blood pressure or Type 2 diabetes – both known to impair cognitive performance – didn't change the relationship researchers found between greater levels of nicotine byproducts in the blood and lower cognitive test scores, 这表明吸烟会损害大脑功能.

的 发现 will be presented at the 美国中风协会's International Stroke Conference. 的 research is considered preliminary until a full paper is published in a peer-reviewed journal.

"We were surprised to find that smoking does not act synergistically with high blood pressure or Type 2 diabetes to impact cognitive performance,该研究的资深作者Dr. 尼尔·帕里克在沙巴足球体育平台发布会上说. He is an assistant professor of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medicine's Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute in New York City.

“对我们来说, these results suggest that smoking has a strong enough influence on brain health independent of other health conditions."

对于这项研究, researchers analyzed health data collected between 2011 and 2014 for 3,244 adults enrolled in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. 参与者被要求自我报告目前的吸烟状况, but how much people smoked also was determined by measuring cotinine, a nicotine byproduct that stays in the blood much longer than nicotine. High blood pressure was found in 77% of study participants and 24% had Type 2 diabetes.

研究对象, 谁的平均年龄是69岁, were given four cognitive function tests that measured skills such as immediate word recall, 单词回忆延迟, 处理速度, 注意和工作记忆.

Researchers found no relationship between high levels of cotinine in the blood and test scores for language or fluency. But people with higher cotinine did score lower on a test that measured multiple types of cognitive function, 比如处理速度, 注意和工作记忆. That relationship remained the same regardless of whether a person had Type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure.

Although the study can't prove cause-and-effect between cigarette smoking and cognitive decline, it adds to the body of evidence that smoking can significantly increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, 包括大脑健康下降, Dr. 罗斯·玛丽·罗伯逊在沙巴足球体育平台稿中说道. She is co-director of the 美国心脏协会's Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science and was not involved in the new research.

"Effective multi-episode counseling and medical therapies for smoking cessation should be available to all,她说. "Stopping smoking should be an urgent priority for smokers of all ages. 什么时候放弃都不晚."

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