Smoking Is Leading Predictor of Alzheimer’s Disease Resilience

So my obviously incorrect takeaway from this  is marijuana smoking. Unless of course this is the nicotine talking. Notice the recent smoker part, so ask your doctor what the definition of recent is, so you know when you should maybe start smoking.

First for your stroke recovery:

My 13 reasons for marijuana use post-stroke.  

Don't follow me, I'm not medically trained and I don't have a Dr. in front of my name.

Second to prevent your likely descent into dementia:

Your chances of dementia here. Hopefully your doctor knows this and has prepared prevention protocols.

1. A documented 33% dementia chance post-stroke from an Australian study?   May 2012.

2. Then this study came out and seems to have a range from 17-66%. December 2013.

3. A 20% chance in this research.   July 2013.

4. A 2-fold increase in dementia risk in this study    Jan. 2017 

 

 

Don't you dare listen to me, I'm not medically trained. Is your doctor trained in getting you to 100% recovery?

The latest here:

Smoking Is Leading Predictor of Alzheimer’s Disease Resilience

VIRTUAL -- August 8, 2022 -- The strongest predictor of people who remain inexplicably resilient to developing Alzheimer’s disease despite having severe brain pathology associated with the disease is, paradoxically, smoking, according to a study presented at the 2022 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC).

In addition to having higher education and lower body mass index (BMI), these individuals have higher rates of anticoagulant or antiplatelet medication use.

“Our findings show the odds of being resilient to Alzheimer’s disease is 2.3 times higher for smokers and 4.7 times higher for recent smokers,” said Narges Ahangari, MD, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Ontario. 

“These 2 factors were the strongest independent predictors among all factors studied,” she added.

Dr. Ahangari underscored that “the protective effect of tobacco will not exceed its risks, and it should never be recommended for increasing the likelihood of resilience to Alzheimer's disease.” However, she noted that “the protective effect of smoking, possibly mediated by nicotine, suggests developing pharmacological mimics could be an effective symptomatic treatment in the future.”

For all of the strong evidence linking key brain pathologies to Alzheimer’s disease, common reports of outliers who remain cognitively unimpaired despite having the distinctive pathology continue to perplex researchers.

In seeking to identify the demographic, clinical, genetic, and neuropathological features that might be associated with cognitive resilience in those patients, Dr. Ahangari and colleagues evaluated data on 654 individuals with severe Alzheimer’s disease pathology and no other primary neuropathological diagnoses. Severe Alzheimer’s disease pathology was defined based on National Institute on Aging-Reagan criteria pathology, including frequent neuritic plaques and Braak & Braak stage V/VI pathology. 

All patients had their last doctor visit within 2 years of their death. Their cognitive status had been assessed with the Mini-Mental Status Examination at that visit. Scores of ≥24 indicated intact cognition and, therefore, resilience to Alzheimer’s disease. Overall, 59 (9%) of the patients were considered resilient and 595 (91%) were nonresilient.

Bivariate tests showed that resilient patients versus nonresilient were older at their last visit (81.4 vs 77.7; P = .005), had more education (16.5 vs 15.1 years; P = .01), had fewer depressive episodes >2 years prior (17.5% vs 29.5%; P = .05), and were more likely to use an anticoagulant agent (55.2% vs 38.2%; P = .01).

Among resilient patients, 66.7% reported being lifetime smokers, versus 45.7% of nonresilient patients (P = .002). Resiliency rates were also higher among those describing themselves as recent smokers (smoked in the past 30 days) (13.2% vs 4.6%; P = .03).

After adjustment in multivariate analysis, the odds of being resilient still favoured patients who were older (odds ratio [OR] = 1.03), had more years of education (OR = 1.16), and had lower BMI (OR = 0.91) than patients who showed impaired cognition. The odds of resiliency also favoured lifetime smokers (OR = 2.78) and those using an anticoagulant/antiplatelet at last visit (OR = 1.87).

Dr. Ahangari noted that smoking has previously been associated with an apparent protective effect in Parkinson’s disease, with 1 recent study showing as much as a 40% reduced risk of Parkinson’s disease among smokers versus never-smokers.

“It is possible that the same component might be involved in protection against the cognitive manifestations of Alzheimer’s disease pathology,” she said.

In addition, regarding the anticoagulant findings, previous research has linked the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and aspirin with a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

Otherwise, the study showed no significant links between non-Alzheimer’s disease pathology and resilience, including Lewy body pathology, infarct, cerebral haemorrhage or microbleeds, hippocampal sclerosis, and amyloid angiopathy. 

“The level of smoking and usage of anticoagulant/antiplatelet medication [may] have a direct relationship with cognitive resilience to Alzheimer’s disease severe pathology,” concluded Dr. Ahangari.

The researchers suggested that “nicotine mimetics could be explored as a potential option for preventing Alzheimer’s disease clinical expression.”

[Presentation title: Resilience to Alzheimer's Disease in a Pathologically Confirmed Cohort]