14 DAY TRIAL // Former or active smokers who have heart problems and go through surgery are more than twice as likely to experience post-operation cognitive function decline than their peers who never took up the bad habit. A recent study carried out by a team of experts at the Morristown Memorial Hospital in Morristown, N.J., found that individuals who have undergone coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery in their hospital manifested memory loss and other mental problems after the intervention.
Presenting their findings at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association (AHA) in Chicago, the Morristown Memorial Hospital team said that out of the 24 heart patients who went through CABG surgical intervention, 60% showed symptoms of cognitive function decline after the operation, while those who used to smoke earlier in their life or still smoked had a 2-fold risk of memory and mental decline.
Dr. James P. Slater, Cardiac Surgeon at Morristown Memorial Hospital explained that cognitive decline may be triggered by smoking because nicotine deposits on walls of small blood vessels, therefore hardening and narrowing them. This brings about a slower circulation of the blood flow through the affected vessels, including brain's blood vessels. Moreover, during surgery, patients experience high levels of stress, which also contributes to less blood and implicitly less oxygen delivered to the brain. All these result in the already mentioned cognitive decline.
Dr. Slater stated: "It probably has to do with the mechanisms of injury of smoking itself. Inhaling carbon monoxide over time is probably not good for the brain, and nicotine causes blood vessels to shrink and affects small vessels more than large vessels. During periods of stress, such as surgery, the vessels are not able to deliver as much blood, and therefore oxygen, to the brain."
Dr. Robert Bonow, former president of the AHA, Chief of Cardiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and moderator of the conference added: "The injury may not be to the brain cells per se but to the microvasculature, or small blood vessels, in the brain."