Teens Find It Hard to Kick the Butt as Adults: Study

A new study claims that most of the psychological difficulties of quitting are as strong for relatively new, young smokers as they are for adults who have been smoking much longer.

The data can inform efforts to improve the efficacy of quitting and withdrawal treatment programs.

Sex Education For Teenagers
Encyclopedia section of medindia explaining about Why Sex Education Is Required For Teenagers?

"Adolescents are showing - even relatively early in the dependence process - significant, strong, negative effects just after acute abstinence from smoking," said L. Cinnamon Bidwell, assistant professor (research) in psychiatry and human behavior and the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies.

In controlled experiments, teens who abstained for nearly a day experienced withdrawal symptoms, smoking urges, exacerbations of negative mood, and higher provoked cravings at levels similar to those previously measured in abstaining adults, according to the study.

Teens who abstained did differ from adults on two measures however: They didn't become more irritated by certain test sounds and they didn't lose the capacity to still feel happy ("positive affect" in the study's parlance).

Improper Abortions- Kenyan Teenagers At Risk
According to hospital research, almost 50 percent of Kenya’s gynecological emergencies compromise complications arising out of abortions done the wrong, often dangerous way.

"In terms of the subjective negative reactions and the urge reactions, their patterns look remarkably similar to adults. That is really interesting because they are smoking fewer cigarettes per day and they've just been smokers for a shorter period of time," said Suzanne Colby, associate professor (research) in psychiatry and human behavior and at the center.

To conduct the research, lead author Bidwell, senior author Colby, and their team measured a variety of psychological effects on 96 teens aged 13 to 19 in three experimental groups: 22 nonsmokers, 47 smokers whom they asked to abstain for almost a full day, and 27 smokers whom they allowed to continue smoking. On average the teen smokers coming into the study consumed about nine cigarettes a day and had been smoking for about two years.

Present Teenagers Are Unhealthier Than Their Parents
The current generation of teenagers is less healthy when compared to their parents.

The researchers made the psychological measurements using standardized methods at two sessions with each group. For the abstainers the first session occurred before abstention and the second occurred during it. The researchers measured the smokers' expired carbon monoxide levels in breath samples at the first session to establish a baseline and again at the second session to confirm whether abstinence, or continued smoking, had indeed occurred.

Among the team's findings was the surprising degree to which abstaining teens felt cravings even when presented with supposedly neutral cues. Their measured craving levels, even when "provoked" with cues as innocuous as a pencil and pad of paper, were about as high as when they were shown overt smoking cues, such as a lit cigarette of their favorite brand.

Poor Diet Puts Teenagers' Health at Risk
A quarter of Australian teenagers eat fast food everyday and more than a third hardly ever eat fruit.

"They came in and their craving and negative affect were already high," Colby said.

What the researchers observed, therefore, was not that abstaining teens have an elevated level of craving when shown smoking cues versus neutral ones, but that their craving level is elevated almost regardless of experimental cues.

But when the researchers compared abstainers to peers who either don't smoke at all, or who didn't have to stop smoking, the abstainers did exhibit a stronger "peak" reaction from smoking-specific cues than the other teens did.

Ultimately, Bidwell and Colby hope the research will inform efforts to make smoking cessation and withdrawal treatment more effective for teens.

The study was recently published online in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.

Source-ANI