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The dangers of second-hand smoking are described in commercials by coughing infants, emblazoned on the back of cigarette boxes and painted on billboards across interstate highways. Warnings gathered from the Mayo Clinic and backed by The World Health Organization note that second-hand smoke contributes to a host of health problems, including heart disease, lung disease and various types of cancer.

New Research from fro Northumbria University now claims that memory-loss can be added to that list.

Published in the latest online edition of the journal Addictions, This study is the first of its kind to explore the relationship between exposure to other people's smoke and everyday memory problems.

To gauge whether or not exposure to cigarette smoke contributes to memory loss, Dr Tom Heffernan and Dr Terence O'Neil, both researchers at the Collaboration for Drug and Alcohol Research Group at Northumbria University, compared a group of smokers with a groups of non-smokers and non-smokers frequently exposed to second hand smoke.

After being given tests to assess their retention abilities, researchers found thanon-smokers who had been exposed to second hand smoke forgot almost 20 percent in the memory tests than their smoke-free counter parts. Both groups were shown to outperform current smokers who forgot 30 percent more than either group.

Dr. Hefferman explains: "Our findings suggest that the deficits associated with second-hand smoke exposure extend to everyday cognitive function. We hope our work will stimulate further research in the field in order to gain a better understanding of the links between exposure to second-hand smoke, health problems and everyday cognitive function," as quoted from a report by Northumbria University.  

However, more long-term studies will have to be done to ensure that exposure to smoke leads to degenerative memory loss, since researchers did not say whether or not they performed tests before the one mentioned that proved an actual loss in memory, rather than just picking participants with poor memories to begin with.