SMOKING AND MENTAL ILLNESS

[Guest guest]

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=80139

SMOKING AND MENTAL ILLNESS Posted By: monk <Send E-Mail>Sunday, 16 October 2005, 6:51 a.m.

 

This correlates with what has been said that the reason smoking is So addictive, is that nicotine is a anti depressant, and many smokers are depressed! It is another self medication! Maybe before lighting up..a smoker should just look up and smile instead? Looking up and smiling releases endorphins in the body! Monk -- NEWSCIENTIST.COM Article Preview Smoke gets in your mind 13 April 2002 Sophie Petit-Zeman Magazine issue 2338 It's bad enough that cigarettes give you lung cancer and heart disease. Could they really cause mental illness too, asks Sophie Petit-Zeman LUNG cancer, hypertension, heart disease, birth defects—we're all too familiar with the perils of smoking. But add to that list a frightening new concern. Mental illness. According to some controversial new findings, if smoking doesn't kill you, it may, quite literally, drive you to despair. The tobacco industry openly pushes its product as something to lift your mood and soothe anxiety. But the short-term feel-good factor may mask the truth: that smoking may worsen or even trigger anxiety disorders, panic attacks and depression, perhaps even schizophrenia. Cigarettes and mental illness have always tended to go together. An estimated 1.25 billion people smoke worldwide—including roughly a quarter of Britons and Americans. Yet people who are depressed or anxious are twice as likely to smoke, and up to 88 per cent of those with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia are smokers. A recent American survey concluded that around half of all cigarettes ... The complete article is 2087 words long. To continue reading this article, to New Scientist. Get 4 issues of New Scientist magazine and instant access to all online content for only $4.95 Source Link: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/drugs-alcohol/mg17423384.800