Bipolar Disorder and Smoking
Patients with bipolar disorder are also significantly more likely to be smokers. In a study that compared patients with no mental illness to patients with bipolar disorder and other psychiatric diagnoses, published in a 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that patients with bipolar disorder had very high rates of smoking.
About 69 percent were current smokers. Among the population with no mental illness, only 22.5 percent were current smokers.
The bipolar respondents also apparently had the greatest difficulty with smoking cessation. They had the lowest quit rates of smoking of all the populations, or 16.6 percent.
The quit rate for individuals with no mental illness was 42.5 percent. Interestingly, the smoking quit rate was also higher for patients with other psychiatric diagnoses, such as panic disorder (41.4 percent), major depression (38.1 percent), and dysthymia, a form of depression (37.0 percent).
It may be uniquely difficult for patients with bipolar disorder to stop smoking, although they should certainly try. They are at risk for the same illnesses as others who are chronic tobacco users, such as LUNG CANCER and EMPHYSEMA.
