Link between smoking and suicide investigated in new study
Tue 10 Jun 2025 11:23
Researchers see a possible link between smoking and suicide. This is presented in a recently published study from an international research collaboration in which a researcher from Mid Sweden University is involved.
"I have been part of a collaboration with researchers from Canada and Denmark where data on cigarette smoking, admissions to psychiatric wards and suicides have been analyzed in a material that includes over 700,000 Canadians," says Fredik Åhs, professor of psychology at Mid Sweden University.
- The findings show a strong correlation between cigarette smoking and suicide. It is more common for individuals who have severe psychiatric diagnoses to smoke than individuals who do not have a psychiatric diagnosis. However, the association between smoking and suicide could not be explained by the fact that more people with a psychiatric diagnosis smoked.
- This suggests that there may be a possible direct link between smoking and suicide. For example, it is possible that smoking's impact on lung tissue leads to immune responses that can affect the brain.
- The findings could possibly indicate that efforts to combat smoking could reduce the number of suicides. But it must be remembered that this is only a correlation study and there may be variables that affect both smoking and suicide that are not highlighted in the study. For example, it is known that there may be genetic factors that influence both smoking and suicide. Therefore, interventions against smoking could have a smaller effect than expected on suicide.