Smoking Status and Cognitive Function in a National Sample of Older Adults

Qiaoyang Zhang; Min Zhang; Yun Chen; Shumin Zhu; Wang Zhou; Lihao Zhang; Guanzhong Dong; Yin Cao

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2022.926708

Smoking Status and Cognitive Function in a National Sample of Older Adults

Front Psychiatry. 2022 Jul 6:13:926708. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.926708. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Qiaoyang Zhang¹, Min Zhang², Yun Chen², Shumin Zhu², Wang Zhou², Lihao Zhang², Guanzhong Dong¹, Yin Cao¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, The Affiliated Changzhou No. 2 People's Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Changzhou, China.
² Department of Neurology, The Affiliated Changzhou No. 2 People's Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Changzhou, China.

Abstract

Aims: To examine the correlation between smoking status and different domains of cognitive function in elderly Americans.

Methods: We used data from the 2011 to 2014 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Participants over 60 years with available smoking history and cognitive function data were enrolled in our analysis. The NHANES study included the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) assessment, the Animal Fluency Test (AFT), and the Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST) to assess cognition. Multivariate regression analyses were used to estimate the association between cigarette smoking and cognitive function.

Results: A total of 2,932 participants were enrolled in the analysis, including 372 (12.7%) current smokers, 1,115 (38%) former smokers, and 1,445 (49.3%) never smokers. Never smokers had in average 3.82 (95% CI, 2.21 to 5.43) points more than current smokers in the DSST, whereas former smokers had 3.12 (95% CI, 1.51 to 4.73) points more than current smokers. Besides, smoking was not associated with the results of the AFT or the CERAD test.

Conclusions: This study suggests that cigarette smoking is associated with processing speed among the American elderly.

Keywords: NHANES; cigarette smoking; cognitive function; older adults; processing speed.