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Depression and tobacco use in childhood increases opioid use
Author(s) -
Knopf Alison
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
alcoholism and drug abuse weekly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1556-7591
pISSN - 1042-1394
DOI - 10.1002/adaw.32980
Subject(s) - depression (economics) , opioid , euphoriant , medicine , dysphoria , heroin , chronic pain , cohort , psychiatry , opioid use disorder , anxiety , drug , receptor , economics , macroeconomics
Researchers have found that childhood depression as well as tobacco use were associated with later opioid use in general, weekly opioid use and heroin use. The cohort study, based on the Great Smoky Mountains Study (GSMS), concluded that children with chronic depression may take opioids to alleviate the physical symptoms — including pain — that often accompany depression. While depression may not be an evident cause of such symptoms, these complaints may lead to unnecessary opioid prescriptions, and the child's first exposure to opioid‐associated euphoria. Childhood somatic complaints — and elevated inflammation and injury — were associated with progression from any to weekly nonheroin opioid use.