Severely Affected Children More Likely to Start Smoking

The more symptoms of AD/HD a child has, the more likely he or she is to take up smoking.

The more symptoms of AD/HD a child has, the more likely he or she is to take up smoking, says a new study from Duke University Medical Center.

"We wanted to know why people with AD/HD smoke more often than those who don't have AD/HD," said Scott H. Kollins, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and lead study author. "What our data clearly show is that for every symptom of AD/HD reported in childhood, the stronger the likelihood that person would smoke regularly during adolescence or early adulthood." Dr. Kollins emphasized that the results do not prove that AD/HD itself leads to smoking.

The study was published in the October 2005 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.