Smoke Gets In Your Brain

Smokers don’t like to hear it, but smoking fogs your brain. The inflammation fostered by cigarette smoke damages brain cells and makes it harder to think clearly. Use of tobacco also significantly increases your risk for losing your mind to dementia. The only way to escape this risk is to stop smoking as soon as possible.

A study of British civil servants, in research called the Whitehall II cohort study, demonstrates that as male smokers age, their brain function implodes more rapidly than does the brain power of non-smokers. And 10 years after you quit smoking, you still run a greater risk of dementia than folks who never smoked.

Meanwhile other studies show that smokers have weaker memories starting in their 40s than non-smokers.

About 44 million Americans are smokers. The health and productivity costs tied to this unfortunate habit total about $200 billion a year. Second hand smoke costs us about $10 billion annually.