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 burn in the fingers of those with mental illness (The Journal of the American Medical Association, voi 284, p 2606).
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