Regina G. Barber

Yeah.

So the rate of smoking cigarettes has declined since the 1960s.

That's when Congress required warnings on cigarette boxes.

And researchers have found that people are more likely to try to quit smoking when they're under 40.

Yeah, Michaela and her team looked at survey data of over 9,000 smokers from 12 different countries for almost two decades.

Half of them quit smoking and the other half continued.

And the survey included cognitive test participants took over the years.

And what the results showed is that people who quit smoking in middle age or even older age scored better than those who never quit.

And so, Michaela, she wasn't surprised that quitting smoking would help the brain, too.

So it's not an overly surprising result, but it's surprising in that we didn't see that the effect kind of weakened with age.

Meaning quitting at any age seems to show a benefit.

Now, Michaela points out that the study can't definitively say good cognitive scores mean

like a lower risk of dementia.

But I talked to a physician who didn't work on the study, Neil Benowitz, and he's very optimistic about the findings, saying that cognitive tests are good predictors of dementia later on.

And as the weeks go by, the fetus can hear the sounds of the person carrying them.

Here's how Melissa Scala put it.

She's at Lucille Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford.

Yeah, so preemie babies, those are born before 37 weeks.

They're at a higher risk for delays in language development.

Among very preterm babies, up to one-third can have problems with reading or speaking later on.