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29 Teves 5761 - January 24, 2001 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Report Links Smoking and Psychological Difficulties
by Yated Ne'eman Staff

On November 21, the Harvard Medical School released a report noting the connection between nicotine addiction and mental illness. It is estimated that nearly 45 percent of total cigarettes purchased in the United States were bought by people with a diagnosable mental illness.

According to the study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, this may be because the mentally ill are more susceptible to the attractions of tobacco advertising or nicotine addiction.

"We found that persons with mental illness are about twice as likely to smoke as other persons," the Harvard report said.

The information was based on data from a study conducted in 1991 and 1992 in conjunction with Congress' orders to research the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in the United States. 4,411 people ranging from ages 15 to 54 were interviewed. The report said this is the most recent national survey available on mental illness and smoking.

The survey found that smokers with a mental disorder accounted for the consumption of about 44.3 percent of the cigarettes smoked by the nationally representative sample in the previous 30 days.

"Extrapolating our results to the U.S. population, we estimate that persons with a diagnosable mental disorder consume nearly half of all cigarettes smoked in the United States," the report said. "Our findings emphasize the importance of focusing smoking prevention and cessation efforts on the mentally ill." The study defined mental illness broadly, from major depression, bipolar disorder and panic disorder to alcohol abuse, drug dependence and antisocial personality, and covering problems like schizophrenia and delusional disorders.

"Perhaps mental illness causes smoking by making people more vulnerable to tobacco advertising or nicotine addiction," said Karen Lasser, principal author of the study. "However, other studies have called the direction of causality into question, suggesting that smoking may cause mental illness and our findings are certainly compatible with that as well."

The report said that about a third of smokers with mental illness were able to give up smoking. Statistics also indicated that if they were leading drug-free and alcohol- free lives, they had a cessation rate comparable to smokers without mental illness. This should encourage them to try to stop.

 

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