Smoking stunts your growth

A report that smoking causes a 1 percent drop in mental capacity is worse than it might first appear. A 1 percent decline means that the brain functions as if it were almost two years older, explains lead researcher Lawrence Whalley, MD, of Scotland's University of Aberdeen, whose study is published in the January 2005 issue of the journal Addictive Behaviors. The effect is apparent not so much in how well we do in everyday tasks as it is in the long-term consequences. "Smokers enter their later years with decreased chances of avoiding dementia," Whalley tells VT.