Only Mental People Smoke Apparently

[Ron]

The following article more or less demonises smokers more (if you believe it)   It takes a while to load but I think its worth a look

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/smoking-may-be-a-sign-of-psychiatric-illness-says-report-after-a-third-of-smokers-are-found-to-have-a-mental-disorder-8554009.html

[lobeydosser]

[womble]

I'm mental by the medical reckoning. Although I think they call it depression and anxiety these days.

But alot of people I know reckon I am mental, I think they are mostly deluded. I'm just slightly odd. Fnarr, millennium hand and shrimp.

[djs]

I didn't read it all, but I suspect there's some truth in there.

I'm 99% sure any decent psychiatrist would spot I have a number of very mild and mostly unnoticeable mental issues. The thing is, almost everyone does, in some way or another. I can safely say I fall into categories of anxiety, depression, OCPD, BPD, and probably another few to boot. I found smoking improved them all...

I'm not "Mental" in any way. The world needs people who care about stuff and worry, and feel highs and lows; they get things done.....uh, oh, is that Narcissistic/egocentric? add that to the list....

[santa668]

Hmmmm, logic failure here methinks:
1/3 of smokers suffer from mental health issues -> if you smoke you probably have mental health issues -> all smokers are mental...
i.e. 1/3 of A's are B's -(Small Logic Jump!)> A's are probably B's -(Biiiig Logic Jump!)> all A's are B's...

Of course that's just the headline, the actual article merely points out that smoking is common among people suffering from mental health issues, and so doctors should consider mental health assessment when treating smokers. Since doctors are supposed to consider mental health assessment on a long list of indicators, this just adds to the list. There are similar lists of indicators for things like heart disease - i.e. obesity, poor diet etc.

1/3 of all smokers suffer from mental health issues (and 2/5 of all sufferers smoke), but approximately 1/5 of the population suffers from mental health issues (and the same proportion of the population smoke), so this suggests that mental illness is more common among smokers. Does this mean that smoking causes mental illness? Or that mental illness causes smoking? No - that takes two different effects 'being a smoker' and 'suffering from mental illness', and makes one the cause of the other. This could be a hypothesis certainly, but I've never seen any research which demonstrated such a link.
Is it possible that smoking helps people manage mental illness? Perhaps - there is research which shows that nicotine helps manage stress.
Is it possible that people suffering from mental illness are less likely to make the same risk analysis that many ex-smokers made, which helped motivate them to quit smoking? Perhaps - mental illness can cause poorer risk analysis.

Storm in a teacup article, tsk tsk Independent, thought you were better than this... I'd expect it from the Daily Mail

[lobeydosser]

I am sure that any psychiatrist could find mental illness of one sort or another in 100 out of every 100 people.
Well maybe 99 out of every 100, because "ofcourse" he would be sane (???).

If you are capable of thinking then you are capable of being thought by others to be ever so slightly weird.

My OH has a physical problem that shows itself as a mental illness and so I have experienced the atmosphere of 3 different psychiatric hospitals over the years.
In all of them, the staff dress the same way as the patients and, quite frankly, I found it really difficult to tell them apart. If they didn't have a stethoscope hanging around their neck they could be anyone.

I personally think that a lot more than "1/3rd" suffer from mental illness, but only 1/3 cross a line that says they need some form of treatment. Oh and here I am talking about everyone, not just smokers.

[djs]

Mar 29, 2013 14:35:19 GMT lobeydosser said:

If you are capable of thinking then you are capable of being thought by others to be ever so slightly weird.

I like that. Makes me feel better.

[OneDay]

"The lunatic is in the hall.
The lunatics are in my hall.
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more."