Healthy Discoveries: Secondhand smoke tied to kids' poor mental health

Healthy discoveries

A large new study of British suggests that children who breathe secondhand smoke are more probable to struggle with mental health troubles.

Some researchers say that the results add insistence in the push for parents to put away their cigarettes, or smoke outside of the home. However, it's still indistinct if tobacco fumes indeed take a toll on children's brains, or if something else is at play.


"We know that exposure to secondhand smoke is linked with a lot of physical health troubles in children, though the mental health side hasn't been explored," lead researcher Mark Hamer, of University College London, told Reuters Health in an e-mail.


According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,two of every three kids between the ages of 3 and 11 are exposed to secondhand smoke in the U.S. Meanwhile, of children aged nine to 17, one in five have been diagnosed with some kind of mental or addictive disorder.


To see if the two statistics are linked, Hamer and his colleagues studied about 900 nonsmoking kids who were between four and eight years old. They measured levels of a byproduct of cigarette fumes in the kids' saliva to measure smoke exposure and had parents fill in a questionnaire about the kids' emotional, behavioral and social troubles.


The more secondhand smoke a child took in, on average, the poorer his or her mental health. This was specially true for hyperactivity and "bad" conduct, report the researchers in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.


Generally, about 3% of all kids received "abnormal" scores of about 20 or more on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, a 40-point range with the highest scores representing the poorest mental health.


The 361 with the most exposure scored an average of 44% higher on the questionnaire -- 9.2 versus 6.4 -- compared to the 101 kids who breathed in the least secondhand smoke.


The hole remained after the researchers accounted for other factors that could affect mental health such as physical activity, asthma and the families' income and housing situations. Still, it can not be ruled out that some unmeasured factor played a role.


It is unclear how secondhand smoke may trigger mental problems. The researchers suggest it could be related to smoke's impacts on chemicals in the brain such as dopamine. Genetics could also be at play, or simply the knowledge that smoke is baleful could be a lower for kids forced to breathe a lot of it every day.


While Hamer noticed that further research is needed to verify the results, Dr. Michael Weitzman of New York University Medical Center, who wasn't involved in the study, said the findings confirm the proofs that secondhand smoke -- and possibly prenatal exposure to tobacco -- causes mental health troubles in children.


"Many people now know that children's secondhand smoke exposure increases their risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, asthma and ear infections ," Weitzman told Reuters Health in an e-mail. "But secondhand smoke also poses a huge burden on the quality of life of children, their families and the larger society because of increased child mental health troubles."
He recommends public education about these consequences, as well as more efforts to help parents quit smoking.


Hamer suggests that parents should try and avoid smoking in their home when children are around since it's dangerous for them -- both physically and mentally until they kick the habit

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