
Dr. Richard Stumacher’s coworker at Northwell Health in New York City used to smoke to curb her severe anxiety, and tried multiple times to stop. “She went through the program and she would quit, and then she would fall off, and we would always support her,” said Stumacher, who specializes in pulmonary disease and critical care medicine. “And I saw her in the hallway just a few months ago and she hugged me out of nowhere. I’m like, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’” She told Stumacher it was her five-year anniversary of not smoking. “It took her a long time, but she got there,” he said. Just 11.5% of Americans currently smoke cigarettes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But within that population, the CDC found that those with feelings of severe psychological distress or those who were diagnosed with depression were far more likely to smoke. Thankfully, a new study found that people with serious mental illness who were offered medication and counseling to quit smoking had a 26% success rate after 18 months, compared to 6% in a control group. This included successful weight management, which is often a reason smokers are hesitant to quit. Dr. Gail Daumit, vice dean of clinical investigation at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, is first author of the study, published recently in the journal… read on > read on >