The survey assessed changes in tobacco, alcohol and other substance use during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The survey was carried out in Moscow and Nizhegorodskaya Oblast in December, 2020 - February, 2021 and included 650 medical organizations’ employees and 344 individuals with harmful alcohol or other substances use.

The instrument included ASSIST, Kessler-10 and IES-R tests modified for self-reporting about different pandemic periods.

Among medical workers 36.8% smoked last 12 months; during the COVID-19 pandemic 13% maintained usual cigarette smoking level, 2.4% increased smoking during incidence rises. 71.2% drank alcohol last 12 months; during incidence rises 20.4% drank as usual, 15.0% drank less frequently; 2.4% increased frequency of drinking, 1.8% volumes on drinking days, 1.3% frequency of heavy episodic drinking. In harmful substance use group 61.9% smoked last 12 months; during COVID-19 incidence rises 40% kept their usual level of smoking; 13.4% increased their smoking during the first and 8.7% during the second ‘wave’ of the pandemic. 90.1% drank alcohol last 12 months; during incidence rises 49% kept drinking as usual, 20% reduced drinking and 17.3% increased drinking frequency, 21.0% volumes on drinking days, 16.4% heavy episodic drinking frequency. Wastewater-based epidemiology analysis performed in Moscow Oblast location demonstrated significant increase during COVID-19 pandemic, compared to same period 2 years earlier: inhaled nicotine use by average of 40%, ethanol consumption by average of 49%.

Changes in cigarette smoking and alcohol use during the COVID-19 pandemic had significant variation. Increases were more likely to occur during the pandemic ‘waves’ among individual from harmful users’ group.

No significant relationships.

Whether smoking should be regarded as a risk factor for mental disorders remains unresolved. Prescribed psychotropic drugs can be used as indications for mental disorders. We investigated how smoking was prospectively related to prescription of antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, antidepressants, and anxiolytics.

Information about smoking, including the Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence, and relevant confounders, were obtained from the population-based Young in Norway Study (N = 2602), with four data collection waves between 1992 and 2006. These survey data were linked with information on prescriptions for psychotropic drugs from the comprehensive, nationwide Norwegian Prescription Database from 2007 to 2015.

Daily smoking with high dependence in 2006 at age 28.5 (s.d. = 2.0) was associated with filling prescriptions of antipsychotics (OR, 6.57, 95% CI 2.19–19.70, p = 0.001), mood stabilizers (OR, 7.11, 95% CI 2.51–20.15, p < 0.001) and antidepressants (OR, 1.91, 95% CI 1.13–3.23, p = 0.016) 1–9 years later. Associations remained significant after adjustment for a variety of potential confounders measured before the assessment of smoking, including sociodemographic background, conduct problems, cannabis use, mental distress, and previous prescriptions for psychotropic medications. The association between smoking and prescription of anxiolytics was weaker and more unstable.

In this study of young adults, daily smoking with high dependence was associated with later prescriptions of antipsychotics, mood stabilizers and antidepressants, indicating smoking as a risk factor for mental disorders treated with these drugs.

The detrimental systemic effects of cigarette smoking are well established. Though less pronounced in the field of otology, they are proposed to contribute to the global burden of unaddressed hearing loss. Recently, in efforts to stop smoking, individuals have used electronic cigarettes of which the long-term safety data are largely unknown. This study aimed to conduct a systematic review of cigarette smoking and electronic cigarette effects in the field of otology.

Relevant articles were identified by a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence healthcare database literature search and by scanning the references of relevant articles and reviews.

A total of 473 articles were identified, with 43 articles included in the review after trials were excluded.

Cigarette smoking is associated with recurrent otitis media, otitis media with effusion and sensorineural hearing loss in children exposed to second-hand smoke. In adults, it is associated with active and aggressive chronic suppurative otitis media, worse tympanoplasty success rates, increased post-operative complications and sensorineural hearing loss that is more pronounced in the long term and at high frequencies. The effects of e-cigarettes in otology are largely unknown.

The link between schizophrenia and cigarette smoking has been well established through observational studies. However, the cause–effect relationship remains unclear.

We conducted Mendelian randomisation analyses to assess any causal relationship between genetic variants related to four smoking-related traits and the risk of schizophrenia.

We performed a two-sample Mendelian randomisation using summary statistics from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of smoking-related traits and schizophrenia (7711 cases, 18 327 controls) in East Asian populations. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) correlated with smoking behaviours (smoking initiation, smoking cessation, age at smoking initiation and quantity of smoking) were investigated in relation to schizophrenia using the inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method. Further sensitivity analyses, including Mendelian randomisation-Egger (MR-Egger), weighted median estimates and leave-one-out analysis, were used to test the consistency of the results.

The associated SNPs for the four smoking behaviours were not significantly associated with schizophrenia status. Pleiotropy did not inappropriately affect the results.

Cigarette smoking is a complex behaviour in people with schizophrenia. Understanding factors underlying the observed association remains important; however, our findings do not support a causal role of smoking in influencing risk of schizophrenia.

Cigarette smoking is a great health problem and prevalent among subjects with schizophrenia. Our aim was to investigate the prevalence and associations of cigarette smoking in patients with long-term schizophrenia.

Seven hundred and sixty schizophrenia patients were interviewed and their cigarette smoking was recorded.

Smoking was more prevalent men than in women patients. In logistic regression analysis, male gender, duration of illness (DUI) from 10 to 19 years, being divorced or separated, lower education and high daily doses of neuroleptics (DDN) associated significantly with regular smoking. Heavy smoking associated, in men, with hospital treatment.

In schizophrenia patients, smoking is associated with long DUI, high DDN and institutional care. Interventions for cessation and/or reduction of cigarette smoking should be a part of the treatment for patients with schizophrenia.

Cigarette smoking is more prevalent among individuals with psychiatric disorders than the general population. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may be an intriguing exception, although no recent study has investigated this hypothesis in OCD patients. Moreover, it is unknown whether reduced smoking rates are present in unaffected first-degree relatives of OCD patients.

We assessed smoking prevalence in adults with OCD and unaffected parents of youth with OCD (PYOCD). To this end, 113 adults with OCD completed online questionnaires assessing symptom severity and smoking status. Smoking status was obtained from an independent sample of 210 PYOCD assessed for psychiatric diagnoses.

Smoking prevalence rates in adults with OCD (13.3%; n = 15) and PYOCD (9.5%; n = 20) samples were significantly lower than those found in representative samples of the general population (19–24%, all P < .001) and Axis I disorders (36–64%; all P < .001). There were no smokers in the adult OCD subset without clinically significant depressive symptoms (n = 54).

Low prevalence of smoking in OCD may be familial and unique among psychiatric disorders, and might represent a possible state-independent OCD marker. Hypotheses concerning the uncharacteristically low prevalence rates are discussed with relation to OCD phenomenology and pathophysiology.

Combined smoking and heavy drinking is a significant health burden. Varenicline, an efficacious tobacco pharmacotherapy that also shows promise for drinking, has yielded mixed results among heavy-drinking smokers. This pilot study investigated integrated tobacco and alcohol counselling plus varenicline for this vulnerable group.

Twelve-week parallel, randomized controlled pilot trial of two behavioural interventions in combination with open-label varenicline. Participants were randomized using computer-generated tables, stratified by sex.

Outpatient academic medical centre research clinic.

Volunteers who reported smoking and heavy drinking and sought tobacco or alcohol treatment (N = 26).

(1) Integrated tobacco + alcohol counselling (INT; n = 13) or (2) counselling focused on their presenting concern (i.e., tobacco or alcohol) (SINGLE; n = 13), plus varenicline (2 mg) for 12 weeks.

Feasibility/acceptability, smoking quit rates and heavy drinking.

INT feasibility/acceptability was high among men but not women. More participants quit smoking in INT than SINGLE. This outcome was only in men, not significant, but had a medium effect size. Both conditions yielded significant drinking reductions.

Integrated tobacco and alcohol behavioural counselling plus varenicline may be feasible and promote smoking cessation among men who smoke and drink heavily, but a larger sample is needed to replicate this finding.

Genetic and environmental factors contribute to the risk of depression and several studies have noted an association between tobacco smoke and depression. Cadmium is a neurotoxicant and the main source of non-occupational exposure is tobacco smoke.

We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of data from 2892 young adult (aged 20–39 years) participants of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2007–2010. Multivariate logistic regressions, adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, poverty income ratio (PIR), obesity, alcohol intake, blood lead (BPb) and smoking status, were used to analyze the association between blood cadmium (BCd) and depressive symptoms, as determined by the score on the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9).

Individuals in the highest BCd quartile had higher odds of having depressive symptoms [odds ratio (OR) 2.79, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.84–4.25] than those in the lowest BCd quartile. Smoking status, but not BPb, was statistically significantly associated with depressive symptoms. Stratification by smoking status found that BCd was significantly associated with depressive symptoms in both non-smokers (OR 2.91, 95% CI 1.12–7.58) and current smokers (OR 2.69, 95% CI 1.13–6.42).

This is the first study to report an association between BCd levels and depressive symptoms using a nationally representative sample. The association of cadmium with depressive symptoms was independent of smoking status. If this association is further confirmed, the continued efforts at reducing cadmium exposures, mainly through tobacco smoking cessation programs, may decrease the incidence of depression.

Objective: A case–control study was performed in Belgrade in order to investigate the association between Parkinson's disease (PD) and smoking, coffee and alcohol consumption.

Methods: During the period 2001–2005, 110 new PD cases and 220 hospital controls were interviewed. Cases and controls were matched by sex, age and place of residence (urban/rural). For the analysis of data conditional univariate and multivariate logistic regression methods were used.

Results: With PD were associated, independently from each other, current smoking [odds ratio (OR) = 0.44; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.23–0.82], alcohol consumption (OR = 4.78; 95% CI = 2.67–8.55) and coffee consumption (OR = 2.54; 95% CI = 1.36–4.75). In ever smokers the risk for PD significantly decreased with the increasing number of cigarettes smoked and with increasing duration of smoking. The risk for PD significantly increased with the increasing quantity of alcohol consumption. PD risk was significantly higher in subjects whose average daily consumption of coffee was 1 and 2–3 cups, and it was lower (but not significantly) in those whose daily coffee consumption was 4+ cups. Cases and controls did not differ in duration of alcohol and coffee consumption. The results of multivariate analyses did not substantially change after adjustment on family history positive on PD.

Conclusion: The findings of this study support the hypotheses of inverse association of smoking with PD, but an inverse association with coffee was not confirmed. PD was found to be positively associated with coffee and alcohol consumption.

Smoking initiation and persistence are clearly associated with factors commonly thought to be environmental in origin, including socio-economic status. However, twin models that incorporate gene–environment correlation and gene×environment interaction have not been applied to elucidate the genetic or environmental role that socio-economic status plays in smoking initiation and nicotine dependence.

Twin structural equation modelling was used to examine gene–environment correlation and gene×environment interaction of one index of socio-economic status, educational attainment, with smoking initiation and nicotine dependence among 5119 monozygotic and 4295 dizygotic male–male Vietnam-era twins from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry, a national registry of twin pairs who served in the military during the Vietnam era.

Educational attainment correlated significantly with smoking initiation (r=−0.27, p<0.001). Additive genetic (p=0.011), shared environment (p=0.002) and unique environment (p=0.027) components contributed to the correlation between educational attainment and smoking initiation. Educational attainment also significantly moderated the variance in smoking initiation (p<0.001), suggestive of gene×environment interaction, although the interaction with the additive genetic, shared environmental and unique environmental components could not be resolved due to multicollinearity. In contrast, educational attainment neither correlated with nor moderated nicotine dependence, once smokers had initiated.

Our study suggests that educational attainment is associated with smoking initiation, in part due to gene–environment correlation and gene×environment interaction. However, once smoking initiation is taken into account, there are no effects – be they gene–environment correlation or gene×environmental interaction – of educational attainment on nicotine dependence.

This study examined the associations between cigarette smoking and suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, both before and after control for potentially confounding using fixed effects regression models.

Data were gathered during the Christchurch Health and Development Study, a 25-year longitudinal study of a birth cohort of New Zealand children (635 males, 630 females). The analysis was based on a sample of 1041 participants with available data on cigarette smoking and suicidal behaviour from ages 16 to 25 years. The main outcome measures were suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, ages 16–18, 18–21, and 21–25.

There were significant bivariate associations between the frequency of cigarette smoking and both suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. Cohort members who smoked 20 or more cigarettes per day had odds of suicidal ideation that were 3.39 times (95% CI 2.06–5.59) those of non-smokers, and odds of suicide attempt that were 4.39 (95% CI 2.18–8.85) times those of non-smokers. Control for non-observed fixed confounding factors reduced the association between cigarette smoking and suicidal ideation and suicide attempts to statistical non-significance. After adjustment, those smoking more than 20 cigarettes per day had odds of suicidal ideation that were 1.00 times (95% CI 0.46–2.18) those of non-smokers, and odds of suicide attempt that were 1.84 (95% CI 0.81–4.18) times those of non-smokers.

The findings suggest that the associations between frequency of cigarette smoking and suicidal behaviour may largely be explained by the non-observed background factors and life circumstances that are associated with both cigarette smoking and suicidal behaviour.