Health Discoveries: Heavy Drinkers and Smokers Get Alzheimer’s Earlier Than Others

People who drink and smoke heavily develop Alzheimer’s disease years earlier than people who don’t, a good reason to quit both those bad habits right now.

Research presented in April to the American Academy of Neurology by Ranjan Duara, M.D., of the Wien Center for Alzheimer’s Disease at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, shows that heavy drinkers—more than two drinks a day—developed Alzheimer’s nearly five years earlier than others, and heavy smokers—a pack a day or more—2.3 years sooner.  

A combination of big-time drinking and smoking raised the possibility of early onset of the disease by as much as six or seven years among the 938 people—age 60 and older, all with a diagnosis of possible or probable Alzheimer’s—who were investigated for the study.    

“These findings are important,” says Neelum Aggararwal, M.D., associate professor of neurological sciences at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center in Chicago, “because they show it’s possible that modifications in lifestyle—cutting down on drinking and smoking earlier in life—can help delay or even prevent dementia.”