Smoking cigarettes is very protecting against parkinsons. The evidence is clear, large and replicated in large samples. Hypothetically, would someone with strong genetic indications of risk for parkinsons, and genetic indications that they are protective against cardiovascular disease, lung cancer and that kind of other smoking related diseases be making a healthy choice to start smoking?.
Thanks for that. What a blog! My personal experiences with psychosis bias me towards theories that play up suggestibility as a key feature in psychotic disorders. I’d favour an alternative hypothesis that the marketing of cigarettes (e.g. presence in movies, positioning as a bad and cool vice) encourages sz’s to take up smoking, then addiction and receptor biases maintain the habit.
Smoking cigarettes is very protecting against parkinsons. The evidence is clear, large and replicated in large samples. Hypothetically, would someone with strong genetic indications of risk for parkinsons, and genetic indications that they are protective against cardiovascular disease, lung cancer and that kind of other smoking related diseases be making a healthy choice to start smoking?.
Presumably it’s the nicotine that has this effect. You can get nicotine into your system in ways less unhealthy than smoking cigarettes.
SSC describes a related affect and also mentions parkinsons in SCHIZOPHRENIA: NO SMOKING GUN (recent).
Thanks for that. What a blog! My personal experiences with psychosis bias me towards theories that play up suggestibility as a key feature in psychotic disorders. I’d favour an alternative hypothesis that the marketing of cigarettes (e.g. presence in movies, positioning as a bad and cool vice) encourages sz’s to take up smoking, then addiction and receptor biases maintain the habit.