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.”
I think that any addiction can be mental illness, or the part of the brain that is hooked and unwell. But no smoker will admit it. No alcoholic will admit it. They will say, it helps, but that is the natural part of addiction is a relief you feel with holding onto it.
I know like people will say, oh, you have a house, you have a life, what’s the matter, everything is great? People just don’t get it. That you can’t even have possession of your own life. How do they begin to understand?
Nicotine abuse is strongly correlated to anxiety and depression, as well. And the vast majority of the PTSD pts at any VA hospital a decade ago were chain smokers. So. If PTSD is the trigger for florid sz that many researchers and theorists assert it to be…
Nicotine does not need to be metabolized to produce both neuro-stimulation and neuro-suppression. We have “nicotinic” receptors throughout the CNS (see Nicotinic acetylcholine receptor - Wikipedia) though they are designed to be acetylcholine receptors.
When they are occupied with nicotine, however, they do… guess what? Dysfunction. The body was designed to deal with a certain range of acetylcholine as those receptor sites. Nicotine sort of “overloads” them, albeit in a manner that is experienced as “pleasant” once tolerance is achieved… but is experienced as agitating when the sites “overgrow” so to speak and start to become “demanding.”
Withdrawal is regularly experienced, as well as stimulation, setting off a cycle to that is mildly excitotoxic (see Excitotoxicity - Wikipedia) to the CNS in the long run.
Switching to e-cigs or gum has no bearing on this. They both carry nicotine.
The way I look at it, is you can be mentally ill and also have others problems too.
As for smoking, there was definitely a step change in my condition after I started smoking. I had mild symptoms, then I started having more severe symptoms after smoking.
Tobacco wasn’t a major commodity till Sir Walter Raleigh introduced it sometime during his life 1554 – 1618.
The history of mental illness goes back to the dark ages. So I’m struggling to see how they got here.