If you do one thing this week . . . stub out the weekend cigarettes

ARE YOU a social smoker? Maybe you have a few cigarettes at the weekend?

Well, if you are looking to stub out that habit, here’s a small but interesting study worth considering.

Research from Northumbria University suggests that people who smoke perform worse compared with non-smokers on tests for everyday prospective memory, or remembering to carry out planned actions.

Their new study, published in The Open Addiction Journal, involved 28 people who smoke 10-15 cigarettes daily, 28 non-smokers and 28 people who smoke about 20 cigarettes a week, typically at the weekend.

And it found that both groups of smokers performed worse on the prospective memory tests.

Researcher Dr Tom Heffernan, who studies the links between smoking and memory impairment, says in a release: “This new research suggests that restricting smoking to weekends makes no difference.”