Another secondary effect added to the long list of symptoms associated with smoking, is that memory and reasoning can be affected.
French researchers made this discovery while analysing medical records of 5 000 participants, ranging from age 35 to 55, and found that smokers did not perform as well in areas such as memory, reasoning, vocabulary and verbal fluency, in comparison to non-smokers.
"Smoking in middle age is associated with memory deficit and decline in reasoning abilities," concluded Dr. Séverine Sabia from the National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Villejuif, France.