Daily HealthBeat Tip

Smoking versus thinking

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Smokers may say a cigarette helps them think more clearly. But a researcher has evidence long-term smoking muddies thinking.

Researcher Jennifer Glass of the University of Michigan looked at men who were long-term smokers. She gave them IQ tests, and tests of their abilities to do such things as remember details of a story, use numbers, and find patterns in what they see. The National Institutes of Health supported her study in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

"We saw differences of about five IQ points between smokers and nonsmokers, and about 5 percent decrease on the cognitive proficiency. It's not large enough to put someone in an abnormal range at all, but it may be enough that a person could notice the difference." (15 seconds)

Glass says this doesn't prove long-term smoking clouds thinking, but she says it looks awfully suspicious.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: December 15, 2005

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