By SHUBHAJIT Chakraborty

New Delhi, March 17 – In a recent report by US medical researchers, it has been revealed that women smokers may suffer from impaired memory and thinking in long term, but the effect appears absent in male smokers.

The study also revealed about the alcohol users and found that both the sexes with moderate use have no long term effect of impaired memory or mental functions. The findings published in the Journal of Studies of Alcohol and Drugs.

Scientists view the findings as surprising. “I expected smoking to show similar effects in men and women,” said Kristin Caspers, a researcher at the department of psychiatry at the University of Iowa and the first author of the study.

“Both the men and women in our study had similar patterns of smoking. But it is possible that (the hormone) oestrogen makes women more sensitive to the effects of nicotine,” Caspers told.

In the previous experiment on tobacco and especially nicotine, it suggested that nicotine lowers the level of estrogen in the blood and block the hormone’s positive effects on brain cells.

However, scientists cautioned that report related to alcohol was not proved due to lack of evidence. Earlier studies suggested that moderate level of alcohol abuse could also lead to mild but significant cognitive deficits. While nicotine appears to enhance alertness or concentration, nevertheless, long term effect on brain is yet to be discovered.

Caspers and her colleagues recognized the alcohol intake and smoking habits of 118 men and 169 women between the ages of 31 and 69 years, and assessed their cognitive abilities through memory and mental function tasks.

Their findings suggest that smoking may have “an enduring effect” on the mental functions of women who are heavy smokers over a long period of time.

“But an acute (immediate) effect of smoking on mental functions could not be entirely ruled out since most of the women who reported smoking 20 or more cigarettes a day were also current smokers,” Caspers said.