Childhood ADHD Linked to Secondhand Smoking

safety-lane.com 07105
chiropractic-lane.com
NEWARK 
http://bit.ly/1DCt06V

Childhood ADHD Linked to Secondhand Smoking

Children exposed to tobacco smoke at home are up to three times more likely to have attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) as unexposed kids, according to a new study from Spain.

The association was stronger for kids with one or more hours of secondhand smoke exposure every day, the authors found. And the results held when researchers accounted for parents’ mental health and other factors.

“We showed a significant and substantial dose–response association between (secondhand smoke) exposure in the home and a higher frequency of global mental problems,” the authors write in Tobacco Control.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two of every five children in the US are exposed to secondhand smoke regularly.

After taking the parent’s mental health, family structure and socioeconomic status into consideration, children who were exposed to secondhand smoke for less than one hour per day were 50 percent more likely to have some mental disorder compared to kids not exposed at all.

And children who were habitually exposed to secondhand smoke for an hour or more each day were close to three times more likely to have a mental disorder.

In addition, kids exposed less than one hour per day were twice as likely to have ADHD as kids who weren’t exposed, and children exposed for an hour or more on a daily basis were over three times more likely to have ADHD.

Lucy Popova, from the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, said there is a lot of evidence about the harms of secondhand smoke on physical wellbeing.

“So parents should not expose their children – the best thing to do is quit,” she said. “And this will not only not expose their children to the secondhand smoke, but will also let them enjoy their life with their children longer.”

SOURCE: bmj.co/1ajZCX4 Tobacco Control, online March 25, 2015.

via Blogger http://bit.ly/1JfE9Ki