(Image source from: thehill.com)

“Smoking is injurious to health”, is what we get to hear but does that make it clear that health together includes both physical and mental health?

Researchers have found out that smoking not only affects the physical health but it also causes damage to the mental health of an individual. The research team from Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University of Belgrade and University of Pristina have come together and has surveyed more than 2,000 students who enrolled themselves at Serbian Universities with differing socio-political and economic environments.

Hagai Levine, a study lead author at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel said, “Our study adds to the growing body of evidence that smoking and depression are closely linked,” though saying that smoking causes depression is still in the early stages and not yet confirmed, it is proven that tobacco causes adverse effects on our mental health.

It has been found out that, individuals who smoke had rates of clinical depression twice or thrice higher than the non-smoking individuals.

The researchers found out that 14 percent of smokers suffered from depression where as the non-smokers who suffered depression were around 4 per cent at the University of Pristina where as the numbers were 19 percent in smokers and 11 percent in non-smokers at the Belgrade University.

It has also been found that regardless of their economic or socio-political background, the depressive symptoms seemed to be in higher rates and lower mental health scores like vitality and social functioning were found in smokers when compared to the non-smokers.

Levine has urged the universities to create smoke-free campuses which not only ban smoking in the campus but it also stops the advertising of tobacco and this would be beneficial for the health of the students.

By Shrithika Kushangi