Dangers of Secondhand Smoke Include Depression

Americans have known the dangers of tobacco for decades now, and I am constantly amazed at the number of people I still see smoking.  And not just older people who started smoking and got hooked before the dangers were known, the number of young people smoking is just crazy!!!  I just want to each out, shake them saying “Are you that stupid?”  Maybe it is because I live in the South (I know Florida isn’t technically tobacco country and many question whether it really is part of the South - however parts of Florida can be pretty red-neck), but when I drive down the road, about 50% of the drivers on the road are smoking a cigarette. 

These geniuses aren’t just harming themselves, they are harming the rest of us with their secondhand smoke.  There is nothing worse than going to the beach or for a hike in a park or nature preserve and having your fresh air fouled by the odor of cigarettes.  Now we can add one more health hazard to the list of the dangers of secondhand smoke:  Depression and mental illness.  I found the following article in the New York Times:

Smokers are known to suffer from high rates of depression and other mental health problems, and now a study reports that even people exposed to secondhand smoke are at significantly increased risk — and more likely to be hospitalized for mental illness.

The study analyzed data from the Scottish Health Survey of 1998 and 2003, a periodic look at a nationally representative sample of about 5,560 nonsmoking adults and 2,595 smokers. Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke were 1.5 times as likely to suffer from symptoms of psychological distress as unexposed nonsmokers, the study found. The risk increased with greater exposure. And though psychiatric hospitalizations were rare over all, they were almost three times as common for the exposed nonsmokers, according to the study, published online June 7 in Archives of General Psychiatry.

While the association between smoking and mental health problems has long been known, researchers have never been able to establish whether either one causes the other, said the paper’s lead author, Mark Hamer, a senior research fellow at University College London.

“This research goes some way toward suggesting nicotine is having some sort of impact on mental health,” Dr. Hamer said. “But of course, we need to do further work.”

 For the sake of your own health and that of your loved ones, get help for your nicotine addiction today.

Posted by Laurie Puckett, Remmel Wellness Center – a full service chiropractic and wellness facility in St. Petersburg, Florida.