Does High Tobacco Consumption Cause Psychological Distress? A Mendelian Randomization Study

Conclusions: Though a strong association between tobacco consumption and psychological distress was found, there was no clear evidence that high tobacco consumption was causally related to psychological distress. Implications: Smoking is associated with several mental health outcomes and smoking cessation is associated with improved mental health. Causality in the association between smoking and mental health is difficult to establish using observational data. Using a genotype known to influence tobacco consumption as instrumental variable for amount of smoking, we found no clear evidence of a direct causal path between high tobacco consumption and psychological distress. Whatever causes the strong association between tobacco consumption and psychological distress, the co-occurrence is important to consider both in interventions for smoking prevention and cessation.
Source: Nicotine and Tobacco Research - Category: Addiction Authors: Tags: Original Investigation Source Type: research