Smoking and heavy drinking speed up cognitive decline, study suggests

The combination of smoking and heavy drinking speeds up cognitive decline, according to new research by University College London. Having assessed nearly 6,500 individuals over a 10-year period, researchers found that smokers who also drank alcohol heavily had a 36% faster cognitive decline compared to non-smoking moderate drinkers. Also, researchers found that among smokers, cognitive decline was faster as the number of alcohol units consumed increased. Smoking and heavier alcohol consumption often co-occurs and their combined effect on cognition may be larger than the sum of their individual effects, according to lead researcher Dr Gareth Hagger-Johnson. “When we looked at