Smoking cigarettes can control mental illness

SMOKING, while undeniably bad for the body, may be
good for the personality, according to a new report.
Scientists have discovered that nicotine can suppress
symptoms of mental illness in hardened smokers who live
off their nerves.

American researchers found that many heavy smokers who
are unable to give up the habit have personality disorders
and suffer from anxiety and depression, or have difficulty
concentrating.

The outward signs of such disorders are masked by their
"selfmedication" with tobacco, which helps to calm the
anxious and stimulate those people with a tendency to
become depressed.

According to the authors of the report at Michigan
University, these apparently beneficial effects make it
harder for many smokers to stop. The conclusions support
a growing belief among doctors in Britain that the only way
to help some smokers is to treat their underlying mental
condition at the same time as providing nicotine
replacement therapy in skin patches.

There are an estimated 10m smokers in Britain but only
about 40,000 a year succeed in giving up cigarettes for
good. Nicotine, a powerful addictive substance in tobacco,
is known to influence the brain messenger chemicals
serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline, soothing some
people and stimulating others, depending on their
personality.

The links between smoking and mental disorders have
emerged at the university's nicotine research laboratory,
which analysed dozens of studies of smokers.

Cynthia Pomerleau, the scientist who carried out the work,
said there was mounting evidence that smoking was
becoming concentrated among people whose brain
chemistry put them at risk.

She believes that young smokers taking up the habit tend
to be those suffering from abnormalities in the "messenger"
chemicals which make them more susceptible to the effects
of nicotine.

Robert West, professor of psychology at St George's
Medical School in south London, is planning a study of
1,000 smokers over three years to establish whether giving
them antidepressant drugs with nicotine patches will help
them to stop.

"There is clear evidence of a link between smoking and
psychological disorders of all kinds," said West. "The
association is very strong. If you follow what happens to
smokers trying to give up, the more psychological
problems they have to start with, the less likely they are to
succeed."

Professor Mike Russell, director of the Imperial Cancer
Research Fund's health behaviour unit in London, said:
"There is a large pool of undiagnosed depression and
anxiety disorders among smokers. These people should be
treated with a combination of antidepressants and nicotine
patches."

The first drug to be licensed as a treatment for the
underlying mental disorders of heavy smokers recently
became available in America. Zyban, manufactured by
Glaxo, relieves anxiety and depression. In trials, 1,500
chronic smokers took the medication twice a day for seven
weeks and were monitored for a year. More than half
managed to give up ¡ double the number who stopped in a
control group. Attempts to bring Zyban to Britain, even for
clinical trials, have so far been rejected by the government.