Smoking may cause your brain to shrink, according to new research

Smoking causes brain shrinkage, study shows

Smokers will want to take note of a new study which shows cigarettes can actually shirk the brain. How the recent eye-opening research shows the effects are similar to the damage Alzheimer’s disease can cause.

ATLANTA - Smoking damages the heart and lungs, researchers have warned for years, but a new study shows it may also be negatively impacting the brain.

Dr. Laura Bierut, an Alumni Endowed professor of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis, led the study which found daily smoking was strongly associated with a decrease in brain volume, the kind of shrinking typically seen with disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.

"It is doing damage to the brain. It is aging the brain and making the brain more susceptible to Alzheimer's disease," Bierut says.

"The more you smoke, the more your brain ages, and the longer you smoke, the more your brain ages," she says.

Bierut says as we age, our brains lose volume, but smoking speeds up that clock.

Researchers studied scans of about 30,000 volunteers who underwent brain imaging as part of the giant health database UK Biobank.

They compared brain scans of smokers and non-smokers in the same age group.

"What we know is that the individuals who are smoking have older-looking brains than, um, people who have never smoked," she says. 

Bierut says the damage is subtle, building up over time, as, she says, smoking blocks small blood vessels that supply oxygen to the heart, and lungs, and brain.

"You're starving the brain of oxygen, and the brain is an organ that loves oxygen. It uses a tremendous amount of oxygen. And so, it looks like we're generally starving the brain of the oxygen it needs."

If you can find a way to quit, Bierut says, you can slow down the clock on the damage.

"When you quit, uh, it's not as if your brain goes back to a younger brain," Bierut says. "What it does is it stays where it is. But quitting smoking is one of the most important things that people can do for their health.