Smoking cigarettes doubles the risk of developing depression, bipolar disorder

Quitting is the best decision I have ever made (the worst decision I have ever made is starting). I started off by vaping - although based on recent research I wonder if that was at all safer than smoking - and working my way down to 0% nicotine fluid over a few years. That wasn't too hard (probably 4-5 days of mild cravings at most once I switched to 0%), the oral fixation provided by vaping was seemingly enough to fool my brain. Things went really poorly when I tried to quit the 0% fluid, nicotine patches used per-instructions were the savior. I would have cravings for a few hours after each dosage decrease, but did have a test of willpower when after quitting the patches (possibly 2 weeks). I kept some patches around, just in case (you don't want to revert all the way to a cigarette if your cravings get the better of you), but never used them. After about 2 years I stopped getting cravings in all situations (social and drinking being the worst). The advertised benefits of quitting are quite real - once you start reaping the rewards the cravings are easy to deal with ("this goes away if I smoke").

I also quit drinking at the start of this year, on a whim. The effects aren't as pronounced as quitting smoking, but I have much deeper emotional reserves when things get difficult. I have also done more research, and it's scary what even a single drink a week (which counts as "chronic usage" if you are doing you own research) will do to your body.

One sentence in this article is of import:

> Statistically, Speed and the team found a correlation here, but they couldn’t explain why they noticed what they did.

Correlation between smoking and mental illness has long been recognized. Without meaningful insight into causation or lack thereof, it's not clear to what extent this work contributes, and the quotes in the article suggest a desire to handwave quickly past the question on the assertion that some causative effect is present and "only" needs identifying.

This study seems like it is just yet again confirming the correlation. Since they aren't performing any intervention, all they can do is statistical analysis to show the strength of that correlation.

I am not convinced by the argument that people starting to smoke long before their first mental health hospitalization means anything since mental health problems tend to start long before hospitalization.

When I was in California in the 90s, all the mental institutions allowed inmates to smoke. Basically whenever they wanted, they could go get a nicotine fix. Now, there was absolutely no caffeine allowed anywhere; all our drinks were decaf. So the only stimulant available was gross stinky tobacco smoke. I hated it. Inmates would come back inside with their clothes and bodies stinking, and we were in close quarters in an enclosed space.

I never understand why they allowed everyone to smoke as much as possible. It seemed detrimental to the drug regimens they put people on, and counterproductive, considering nicotine's nature as a stimulant. I noticed that since I moved here in recent years, there has been no opportunity for inmates to smoke. I can't recall the caffeine policies, though.

Seems like putting the cart before the horse to me, coorellation does not equal causation. It is well known that bipolar individuals are FAR more likely to seek out and use drugs in general, which would include smoking.

I don't think this paper actually disentangles the causation direction. It's just another study showing that people with mental problems tend to like smoking. The 20 year gap between starting smoking and hospitalization they're talking about leaves a lot to be desired.

The most surprising thing to me is that they managed to find an n=131,140 of people in the system with enough genetic testing coverage to calculate the polygenetic scores for the smoking models they used. That many people had detailed gene sequencing done and in accessible public databases?

Smoking increases risk of all cause mortality by 79% over non-smokers [0]. This means that your probability of dying by any cause in any time period is 79% higher if you smoke than of you didn’t smoke. If you’re not that worried about bpd or depression, perhaps you’ll consider all-cause-mortality.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9150905/

> “Smoking typically comes before the mental illness. In fact, a long time before. On average, people from the data set began smoking at the age of 17, while they were typically not admitted to hospital with a mental disorder until after the age of 30,” he adds.

So smoking onset is measured by behavior initiation but mental illness onset is measured by first hospitalization?

This is just one of the pieces of motivated reasoning evident here.

> Since this research shows that people hardly ever start smoking cigarettes after the age of 20, the team poses the idea that it could be beneficial to raise the age limit for buying them.

Interesting, the recent tobacco age limit increase in the US from 18 to 21 should help.

Feels like old news. And maybe it is my bubble, but isn't smoking a rapidly dying habit? Research on vaping would be a more valuable and urgent subject IMHO.

Or is it the other way around?

Or is it that depression and bipolar disorder tends you towards smoking?