Source: Drug Delivery  |  Posted 9 years ago

Patients who smoke tobacco face the highest odds for depression, research from the United States shows.

Former smokers face the next highest odds, followed by non-smokers, say investigators from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Cross-sectional data was obtained from the US National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, collected from different respondents each year from 1994 to 1996. A total of 13,827 young people aged from 12 to 17 years participated.

Variations in depression among current and former smokers were compared with depression in non-smokers, using ordinal logistic regression.

The researchers focussed on the association between time since last smoke and depression severity in former smokers to ascertain whether the level of tobacco/depression relationship might have a time-dependent component.

Results also indicate that females have higher odds of depression, compared with males, they report. Odds varied in subgroups of former smokers and were lower with more elapsed time since the last smoke.

The investigators suggest their results add new evidence on depression associated with tobacco smoking.

They comment: "Teens who quit smoking may reduce their odds of depressed mood, but more research is needed before a definite causal path can be established."