The vast majority of people with mental illness also smoke – a lot. In fact smoking, which delivers to tortured brains the soothing drug nicotine, is considered by many sufferers, and their doctors, as not optional.
More than 60 percent of schizophrenia patients are current smokers (here), but hope may be found in a small open-label Italian clinical trial, reported by Pasquale Caponnetto at the University of Catania and his colleagues.
Caponnetto et al. recruited 40 people with schizophrenia who did not intend to reduce or quit smoking; they were given JUUL e-cigarettes and pods for 12 weeks. Caponnetto found that 16 subjects had quit smoking over that period, and 21 others had reduced their cigarette consumption from a median of 25 before the trial, to 10. At the final six-month follow-up visit, when all participants had been purchasing their own tobacco products for three months, 14 had quit smoking.
Dr. Brad Rodu – Tobacco Truth – 2021-03-31.
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