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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- As if lung and liver cancer werent enough of a reason to stop smoking and drinking; a new study reveals Alzheimers patients who smoked and drank heavily developed the disease an average of six to seven years sooner than those who did neither.
The research is from a study done at the Wien Center for Alzheimers Disease at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Fla. These results are significant because its possible that if we can reduce or eliminate heavy smoking and drinking, we could substantially delay the onset of Alzheimers disease for people, study author Ranjan Dura, M.D., was quoted as saying.
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Researchers found people who drank heavily developed the disease almost five years sooner than non drinkers. Heavy smokers got the disease a little over two years sooner and people with the APOE gene variant associated with Alzheimers developed it three years sooner.
Those who had all three risk factors had the highest onset numbers. They were likely to develop Alzheimers at age 68 and half, while those who neither smoked or drank heavily or had the APOE gene variant didnt get it until 77 years of age -- a difference of more than eight years.
It has been projected that a delay in the onset of the disease by five years would lead to a nearly 50 percent reduction in the total number of Alzheimers cases, Dr. Dura said. Dr. Dura also noted the study results showed heavy smoking and drinking were among the most important preventable risk factors for Alzheimers.
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SOURCE: Presented at the American Academy of Neurologys 60th Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 12-19, 2008
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
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