Arch Intern Med
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Smoking is a risk factor for several life-threatening diseases, but its long-term association with dementia is controversial and somewhat understudied. Our objective was to investigate the long-term association of amount of smoking in middle age on the risk of dementia, Alzheimer disease (AD), and vascular dementia (VaD) several decades later in a large, diverse population. ⋯ In this large cohort, heavy smoking in midlife was associated with a greater than 100% increase in risk of dementia, AD, and VaD more than 2 decades later. These results suggest that the brain is not immune to long-term consequences of heavy smoking.
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Monitoring disease incidence and transmission patterns is important to characterize groups at risk for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Clinical cases generally represent about 20% to 30% of all newly acquired infections. ⋯ The incidence of acute HCV declined substantially over the 25 years of population-based surveillance. Despite declines, IDU is the most common risk factor for new HCV infection.