Mood, Health and Cigarette Smoke - not a Good Combination
Published on May 25, 2009 4:17 AM
Cigarettes and even cigarette smoke can harm the people’s health and mood. According to a recent study, secondhand smoke not only can irritate the people lungs, it also can blacken their mood as well.
Researchers found that non-smokers exposed to cigarette smoke at home or work are more than twice as likely as those not exposed to have major depression.
It's believed to be the first U.S. study tying secondhand smoke to depression. Another in Japan came up with a similar conclusion.
But unlike the Japanese research, this study confirmed exposure to smoke by measuring cotinine, a chemical that occurs in blood after breathing in smoke. For the first time researchers found cotinine in more than 3,000 non-smoking adults. An additional 92,000 non-smokers only reported if they lived with or worked around smokers. Everyone also filled out questionnaires on symptoms of depression.
Researchers verified the non-smokers blood for to find the symptoms of serious depression caused by secondhand smoke exposure. Even working where smoking was allowed in public places more than doubled the risk of depression.
In general smokers have higher rates of depression than non-smokers. Even animal and human studies showed that smokers have more dopamine in their brains, which is tied to anxiety and depression. So secondhand smoke might have the same effect on non-smokers.
Another new study found that inhaling other people's cigarette smoke could increase the risk of memory problems and dementia after age 50.
