People afflicted with schizophrenia more likely to smoke.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Researchers in the United Kingdom have suggested that smoking tobacco is linked to an increased risk of developing psychosis, while people who develop illnesses like schizophrenia are three-times more likely to smoke than the general public.
On Friday, research published in The Lancet Psychiatry suggested the daily use of tobacco may be a contributor to mental illness — not necessarily result of it.
“These findings call into question the self-medication hypothesis by suggesting that smoking may have a causal role in psychosis,” read a statement from King’s College London’s Department of Psychosis Studies, which took part in the meta-analysis.
The researchers analyzed 61 studies, which gathered data from 15,000 smokers and 273,000 non-smokers and found that 57 percent of those who went on to develop psychosis were in fact smokers, according to RT.
Dr. James MacCabe, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s, told the BBC, “It’s very difficult to establish causation [with this style of study], what we’re hoping that this does is really open our eyes to the possibility that tobacco could be a causative agent in psychosis, and we hope this will then lead to other research and clinical trials that would help to provide firmer evidence.”
The researchers theorized that changes in the brain’s dopamine system may explain the association, according to CTV.
“Excess dopamine is the best biological explanation we have for psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia,” said King’s College psychiatric professor Robin Murray. “It is possible that nicotine exposure, by increasing the release of dopamine, causes psychosis to develop.”
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Not buying it!