Both smoking and cardiovascular disease impact cognitive function, based on a new study released by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).
The TGen study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, involved over 70,000 participants between the ages of 18 and 85.
According to researchers: “We investigated the associations between sex, smoking, and cardiovascular disease with verbal learning and memory function.”
“Using MindCrowd, an observational web-based cohort of ~ 70,000 people aged 18–85, we investigated whether sex modifies the relationship between smoking and cardiovascular disease with verbal memory performance,” the authors wrote in their journal report.
Researchers found associations between dementia and both smoking and cardiovascular disease, with males more likely to be impacted by cardiovascular disease than females.
“We found significant interactions in that smoking is associated with verbal learning performance more in women and cardiovascular disease more in men across a wide age range,” the study says.
“These results suggest that smoking and cardiovascular disease may impact verbal learning and memory throughout adulthood differently for men and women.”
The study was published online on May 13th, 2021.