SSWAHS = SWSLHN and mental health in the Southern Highlands - 10

Passive smoking linked to ADHD

11th Apr 2011

Rada Rouse all articles by this author

A NEW study has linked passive smoking to ADHD in children, prompting calls for healthcare providers to "motivate parents" to protect their offspring.

US researchers set out to see if secondhand tobacco smoke exposure was associated with any mental health disorders among nearly 3000 children aged 8-15 years who took part in a nationwide health and nutrition survey.

They measured serum cotinine in nonsmokers, finding it was associated most strongly with ADHD symptoms but also with symptoms of major depressive disorder, conduct disorder and generalised anxiety disorder.

The link was statistically significant even after adjusting for variables including respiratory diseases such as asthma and for maternal smoking during pregnancy.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess the association between biologically confirmed (secondhand smoke) exposure and mental disorder symptoms in a nationally representative sample of US children and adolescents," the authors said.

In an editorial in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, preventive health expert Dr Jonathan Samet said the study findings were provocative but further research was needed to establish causality.

Given the evidence for an impact of passive smoking on other areas of infant and child health, doctors had a role in educating and motivating parents to protect their children "because smoke-free homes cannot be mandated", he said.

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2011;165:332-38; 370-72

Comments:

big bug
11th Apr 2011
6:25pm

The true cause of ADHD, which I determined in 1995, is prenatal exposure to refined, vitamin E-depleted seed oils in the mothers diet. These oils are likely to peroxidize the fetal brain, destroying Omega-3 fatty acids required for neuronal and synaptic development, and restricting brain growth before birth. Smoking is common in families who unwittingly choose to consume refined salad and frying oils; better educated folk choose olive oil, which costs more, and they smoke less. As for depression and anxiety, the root cause here--also common in less educated families--is maternal fat consumption in pregnancy (as shown recently in monkeys [E Sullivan, Oregon]). An anxious child who partakes of the prevalent fatty foods in the family (dairy, meat and bakery fats; chocolate) will soon become depressed. As in oil-using families, smoking is common among unhealthy parents who may themselves be anxious and depressed, due to the dietetic faults of their immediate forebears, especially grandmothers during their pregnancies.