I feel like most people have made the wise decision to put smoking cigarettes aside, even if switching to e-cigarettes isn’t quite as healthy as folks originally thought.

Cigarette sales would disagree, of course, but this new study states that your brain may be at risk if you’re one of the ones still buying.

Everyone should know by now that cigarettes cause cancer and lung disease.

Now, they’re saying there is proof that it can shrink your actual brain and can lead to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease down the road.

Researchers from Missouri and North Carolina picked through data on over 32,000 Europeans trying to determine whether smoking decreases brain volume or genetic factors like a smaller brain size leads to smoking in the first place.

“It is known that there are associations between smoking behavior and lower total brain volume and gray and white matter volumes. However, a significant question remains about whether these associations represent predisposing features for the risk of developing cigarette smoking or are consequences of cigarette smoking.”

In an attempt to sort it out they researched people’s health behaviors, brain scans, and genetic factors and, after crunching the numbers, decided that daily smoking was what led to smaller brains.

The heavier the smoker, the greater then brain matter lost – and no, you can’t get it back.

People’s brain sizes naturally decrease as they age, so heavy smoking effectively ages a person prematurely. The researchers estimated that 14% of global Alzheimer’s patients are or were heavy smokers.

Even if you can’t get matter back, stopping smoking is still to your advantage.

“You can’t undo the damage that has already been done, but you can avoid causing further damage. Smoking is a modifiable risk factor. There’s one thing you can change to stop aging your brain and putting yourself at increased risk of dementia, and that’s to quit smoking.”

Seriously, the time is now.

It’s incredibly hard, but you and your loved ones are always worth it.