PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Alcohol, tobacco, drug use far higher in severely mentally ill

2014-01-02
(Press-News.org) Contact information: Jim Dryden
jdryden@wustl.edu
314-286-0110
Washington University School of Medicine
Alcohol, tobacco, drug use far higher in severely mentally ill

In the largest ever assessment of substance use among people with severe psychiatric illness, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Southern California have found that rates of smoking, drinking and drug use are significantly higher among those who have psychotic disorders than among those in the general population.

The study is published online in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

The finding is of particular concern because individuals with severe mental illness are more likely to die younger than people without severe psychiatric disorders.

"These patients tend to pass away much younger, with estimates ranging from 12 to 25 years earlier than individuals in the general population," said first author Sarah M. Hartz, MD, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University. "They don't die from drug overdoses or commit suicide — the kinds of things you might suspect in severe psychiatric illness. They die from heart disease and cancer, problems caused by chronic alcohol and tobacco use."

The study analyzed smoking, drinking and drug use in nearly 20,000 people. That included 9,142 psychiatric patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or schizoaffective disorder — an illness characterized by psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, and mood disorders such as depression.

The investigators also assessed nicotine use, heavy drinking, heavy marijuana use and recreational drug use in more than 10,000 healthy people without mental illness.

The researchers found that 30 percent of those with severe psychiatric illness engaged in binge drinking, defined as drinking four servings of alcohol at one time. In comparison, the rate of binge drinking in the general population is 8 percent.

Among those with mental illness, more than 75 percent were regular smokers. This compares with 33 percent of those in the control group who smoked regularly. There were similar findings with heavy marijuana use: 50 percent of people with psychotic disorders used marijuana regularly, versus 18 percent in the general population. Half of those with mental illness also used other illicit drugs, while the rate of recreational drug use in the general population is 12 percent.

"I take care of a lot of patients with severe mental illness, many of whom are sick enough that they are on disability," said Hartz. "And it's always surprising when I encounter a patient who doesn't smoke or hasn't used drugs or had alcohol problems."

Hartz said another striking finding from the study is that once a person develops a psychotic illness, protective factors such as race and gender don't have their typical influence.

Previous research indicates that Hispanics and Asians tend to have lower rates of substance abuse than European Americans. The same is true for women, who tend to smoke, drink and use illicit drugs less often than men.

"We see protective effects in these subpopulations," Hartz explained. "But once a person has a severe mental illness, that seems to trump everything."

That's particularly true, she said, with smoking. During the last few decades, smoking rates have declined in the general population. People over age 50 are much more likely than younger people to have been regular smokers at some point in their lives. For example, about 40 percent of those over 50 used to smoke regularly. Among those under 30, fewer than 20 percent have been regular smokers. But among the mentally ill, the smoking rate is more than 75 percent, regardless of the patient's age.

AUDIO: Individuals who have severe mental illness, like schizophrenia, don't live as long as people who aren't affected by serious psychotic problems. And in the largest-ever assessment of substance abuse among...
Click here for more information.

"With public health efforts, we've effectively cut smoking rates in half in healthy people, but in the severely mentally ill, we haven't made a dent at all," she said.

Until recently, smoking was permitted in most psychiatric hospitals and mental wards. Hartz believes that many psychiatrists decided that their sickest patients had enough problems without having to worry about quitting smoking, too. There also were concerns about potential dangers from using nicotine-replacement therapy, while continuing to smoke since smoking is so prevalent among the mentally ill. Recent studies, however, have found those concerns were overblown.

The question, she said, is whether being more aggressive in trying to curb nicotine, alcohol and substance use in patients with severe psychiatric illness can lengthen their lives. Hartz believes health professionals who treat the mentally ill need to do a better job of trying to get them to stop smoking, drinking and using drugs.

"Some studies have shown that although we psychiatrists know that smoking, drinking and substance use are major problems among the mentally ill, we often don't ask our patients about those things," she said. "We can do better, but we also need to develop new strategies because many interventions to reduce smoking, drinking and drug use that have worked in other patient populations don't seem to be very effective in these psychiatric patients."



INFORMATION:



Funding for this research comes from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the American Cancer Society.

NIH grant numbers R01 DA032843, R01 DA025888, U10 AA008401, UL1 RR024992, P01 CA089392, R01 MH085548, R01 MH085542, K08 DA032680-1, Kl2 RR024994, K01 DA025733.

Hartz SM, Pato CN, Medeiros H, Cavazos-Rehg P, Sobell JL, Knowles JA, Bierut LJ, Pato MT and the Genomic Psychiatry Cohort Consortium. JAMA Psychiatry Published online Jan. 1, 2014. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.3276

Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Tripling tobacco taxes worldwide would avoid 200 million tobacco deaths

2014-01-02
Tripling tobacco taxes worldwide would avoid 200 million tobacco deaths Controlling tobacco marketing is also key to helping people quit smoking TORONTO, Jan. 2, 2014—Tripling taxes on cigarettes around the world would reduce the number of smokers by one-third ...

US global share of research spending declines

2014-01-02
US global share of research spending declines New analysis shows Asia gaining, due to increased support from both government, industry ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The United States' global share of biomedical research spending fell from 51 percent in 2007 ...

Drivers engaged in other tasks about 10 percent of the time

2014-01-02
Drivers engaged in other tasks about 10 percent of the time NIH, Virginia Tech study shows crash risks greatest for teens Drivers eat, reach for the phone, text, or otherwise take their eyes off the road about 10 percent of the time ...

High blood pressure potentially more dangerous for women than men

2014-01-02
High blood pressure potentially more dangerous for women than men WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Jan. 2, 2014 – Doctors may need to treat high blood pressure in women earlier and more aggressively than they do in men, according to scientists at Wake Forest ...

To grow or to defend: How plants decide

2014-01-01
To grow or to defend: How plants decide Crop breeding for semi-dwarfed plants could also improve disease resistance Scientists have discovered how plants use steroid hormones to choose growth over defence when their survival depends on it. The findings ...

Insight into likelihood of retinal detachment following open globe injury

2014-01-01
Insight into likelihood of retinal detachment following open globe injury Findings published in Jan. issue of Ophthalmology BOSTON (Jan. 1, 2014) – Ocular trauma causing open globe injury, or a breach in the wall of the eye, remains an important ...

New molecular targets identified in some hard-to-treat melanomas provide potential treatment option

2013-12-31
New molecular targets identified in some hard-to-treat melanomas provide potential treatment option December 30, 2013 New York, NY / Los Angeles, CA: Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), the charitable initiative supporting ground-breaking research ...

Sleep to protect your brain

2013-12-31
Sleep to protect your brain A new study from Uppsala University, Sweden, shows that one night of sleep deprivation increases morning blood concentrations of NSE and S-100B in healthy young men. These molecules are typically found in the brain. Thus, ...

Researchers use Hubble Telescope to reveal cloudy weather on alien world

2013-12-31
Researchers use Hubble Telescope to reveal cloudy weather on alien world Weather forecasters on exoplanet GJ 1214b would have an easy job. Today's forecast: cloudy. Tomorrow: overcast. Extended outlook: more clouds. A team of scientists led by researchers in ...

Hyperhomocysteinemia patients with dyslipidemia are more likely to have stroke

2013-12-31
Hyperhomocysteinemia patients with dyslipidemia are more likely to have stroke Hyperhomocysteinemia and abnormal blood lipids are independent risk factors for stroke. However, whether both factors exert a synergistic effect in the onset of stroke remains unclear. ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Exercise as an anti-ageing intervention to avoid detrimental impact of mental fatigue

UMass Amherst Nursing Professor Emerita honored as ‘Living Legend’

New guidelines aim to improve cystic fibrosis screening

Picky eaters by day, buffet by night: Butterfly, moth diets sync to plant aromas

Pennington Biomedical’s Dr. Leanne Redman honored with the E. V. McCollum Award from the American Society for Nutrition

CCNY physicists uncover electronic interactions mediated via spin waves

Researchers’ 3D-printing formula may transform future of foam

Nurture more important than nature for robotic hand

Drug-delivering aptamers target leukemia stem cells for one-two knockout punch

New study finds that over 95% of sponsored influencer posts on Twitter were not disclosed

New sea grant report helps great lakes fish farmers navigate aquaculture regulations

Strain “trick” improves perovskite solar cells’ efficiency

How GPS helps older drivers stay on the roads

Estrogen and progesterone stimulate the body to make opioids

Dancing with the cells – how acoustically levitating a diamond led to a breakthrough in biotech automation

Machine learning helps construct an evolutionary timeline of bacteria

Cellular regulator of mRNA vaccine revealed... offering new therapeutic options

Animal behavioral diversity at risk in the face of declining biodiversity

Finding their way: GPS ignites independence in older adult drivers

Antibiotic resistance among key bacterial species plateaus over time

‘Some insects are declining but what’s happening to the other 99%?’

Powerful new software platform could reshape biomedical research by making data analysis more accessible

Revealing capillaries and cells in living organs with ultrasound

American College of Physicians awards $260,000 in grants to address equity challenges in obesity care

Researchers from MARE ULisboa discover that the European catfish, an invasive species in Portugal, has a prolonged breeding season, enhancing its invasive potential

Rakesh K. Jain, PhD, FAACR, honored with the 2025 AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research

Solar cells made of moon dust could power future space exploration

Deporting immigrants may further shrink the health care workforce

Border region emergency medical services in migrant emergency care

Resident physician intentions regarding unionization

[Press-News.org] Alcohol, tobacco, drug use far higher in severely mentally ill