Types Of Teenage Depression, depression and smoking
Interesting study that links depression and cigarette smoking. I've
always felt more depressed during periods of smoking, so I'm glad
someone finally did some research to validate it.
Conventional wisdom says that kids start lighting up cigarettes for many
reasons: peer acceptance, teenage rebellion and to quell feelings of
anxiety and sadness. A recent study conducted at the University of
Cincinnati College of Medicine presents a somewhat different outlook on
the latter reason. These researchers say smoking may actually be the
cause of teen depression rather than an attempt to self-medicate.
The investigators in this study took two types of sample groups. The
first group contained 8704 teens who were not depressed based upon CES-D
scores. Baseline smoking status in this group varied. The second group
was composed of 6947 teens who were not currently smokers, but had a
high depressive symptomology based upon CES-D score. The outcome of
these two groups was to be assessed a year later. The smokers who were
not currently depressed would be observed for the development of high
depressive symptoms. The depressed non-smokers would be observed to see
if they picked up a smoking habit of a least one pack per day.
When they followed up these two groups of adolescents what they found
was surprising. For those originally not depressed, cigarette smoking
was found to be the strongest predictor of developing depression. In
the other group, when all possible contributing factors to teen smoking
were considered, depression did not prove to be a strong predictor of
heavy smoking. Previous experimentation with smoking seemed to be the
strongest predictor.
I have never smoked, so I can't blame the weed but I agree that cigarettes
certainly can not help in any way.
I had a librarian friend who said he came across a report that said that
smoking helps produce seritonin in the brain. So perhaps smoking is
self-medicating? I smoke and lke it a great deal.
I can believe that people smoke to alleviate depression. I haven't smoked
for over 11 years, but when I did, it was almost like a "high" to have a
smoke when feeling withdrawal, sort of like a distraction from depression,