Study finds link between smoking, depression

A new study has found that smoking cigarettes can affect our mental and emotional well-being. The study, which appeared in the journal of Plos One, revealed that there were clues that point to smoking as a predisposing factor to depression. The senior and corresponding author of the study paper, Prof Hagai Levine from the Hebrew […]

A new study has found that smoking cigarettes can affect our mental and emotional well-being.

The study, which appeared in the journal of Plos One, revealed that there were clues that point to smoking as a predisposing factor to depression.

The senior and corresponding author of the study paper, Prof Hagai Levine from the Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine in Jerusalem, Israel, explained that depression tended to be twice as likely among people who smoke than those who do not, but it is not yet clear which causes which.

“Some researchers, however, believe that smoking may lead to depression, not vice versa. What is more, other studies have found that people who had never smoked generally have a better health-related quality of life (HRQoL), as well as less anxiety and depression,” Levine said.

To help shed some light on the matter, Prof Levine and his team decided to study the association between HRQoL and smoking among students in Serbia. Few studies have looked into this association in low- and middle-income countries.

However, more than 25% of people living in Serbia and other Eastern European countries smoke, which is another reason that studying this subject in this population is of interest. Furthermore, about a third of students in Serbia smoke.

The new study included data from two cross-sectional studies that gathered information from two universities: the University of Belgrade and the University of Pristina. The former has around 90,000 students, and the latter has around 8,000.

Of this total, the researchers enrolled 2,138 students in their study. The students took part in regular health checkups between April and June 2009 at the University of Belgrade, and between April and June 2015 at the University of Pristina.

The participants provided information about their social and economic backgrounds such as their age, social status, place of birth, and parents’ education as well as information on any preexisting chronic conditions. They also provided information about their habits and lifestyle, such as smoking status, alcohol use, exercise levels, and eating habits.