Research published in The Lancet Psychiatry suggested daily tobacco use may be a contributor to mental illness. ©milan2099/Shutterstock.com (Paris, France-AFP) – People who suffer from psychosis are about three times more likely to be smokers, but scientists have long scratched their heads over which one leads to the other. On Friday, research published in The Lancet Psychiatry suggested daily tobacco use, already known to cause cancer and stroke, may be also be a contributor to mental illness – not necessarily result of it. Analysing data from 61 studies conducted around the world between 1980 and 2014, a team found that 57 percent of people first diagnosed with psychosis were smokers. The studies contained data on nearly 15,000 smokers and 273,000 non-smokers, some of whom were diagnosed with psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia. “People with first episodes of psychosis were three times more likely to be smokers,” said a statement from King’s College London’s Department of Psychosis Studies, which took part in the meta-analysis. “The researchers also found that daily smokers developed psychotic illness around a year earlier than non-smokers.” It has long been hypothesized that higher smoking rates among psychosis sufferers could be explained by people seeking relief from boredom or distress, or self-medicating against the symptoms or side-effects of antipsychotic medication. But if this were so, researchers would expect smoking rates to increase only after people had developed psychosis. “These findings call into question the self-medication hypothesis by suggesting that smoking may have a causal role in psychosis,” said the Read More …
