Studies Show that Smoking can indeed cause Mental Illnesses

After carefully analyzing a number of about 15.000 smokers and 270,000 non-smokers, King’s College in London studies show that studies show that smoking can indeed cause mental illnesses and that people with first episode of psychosis were three times more likely to be smokers’.

Even though, smoking is becoming am increasing factor for health destruction through the development of psychosis, expert James MacCabe of Kings College insisted that, among other factors such as chaotic lifestyle and even genetic disruptions, tobacco is another risky factor which can lead towards the development of schizophrenia.

Although the poles have proved that only 1/100 people tend to be affected by this mental illness during their adult years, its main symptom, the disruption of thinking and loss of all perception clearly seems to have great impact on the patients who are slowly beginning to suffer from psychotic experiences.

Since 1980’s and until today, based on 61 conducted experiments, it appears that a percentage of almost 60% of the people showing signs of psychosis, are in fact heavy smokers.

According to one of the researches published within the Lancet Psychiatry, it has been suggested that the everyday use of tobacco can also represent a strong contribution to the appearance of mental illnesses, and that smokers even start to adapt a psychotic behavior earlier than a non-smoker would.

Based on recent findings, scientist have come up with one possible connection between the increasing levels of dopamine and smoking, which have led them into believing that it plays an important in the transmission of nerve signals to the brain.

By adding that the ‘excess dopamine is the best biological explanation we have for psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia’, Professor Robin Murray of the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College has backed up the theory, through his belief that, exposure to a high level of nicotine along with the increase of dopamine, can in fact, be the cause for psychosis development.

Even though previous studies have also shown a strong connection between cannabis and mental psychosis, there is not yet much evidence to prove whether or not it indeed represents a true health risk, or if even some people, more than others, are even more predisposed towards schizophrenia, due to other types of genes.

Final results show that, tobacco is in fact a greater threat than cannabis ever was. Enough proof has been brought to the surface in order to highlight the fact that ‘tobacco smoking is one of the most dangerous drug in the world’.

Image Source:  www.takepart.com