Br J Psychiatry. 2010 Jun;196(6):425-6. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.109.074880.
Cigarette smokers frequently describe the anxiolytic and antidepressant effects of smoking, but evidence suggests that cigarette smoking may itself increase negative affect, so that the causal direction of this association remains unclear. Although increasingly sophisticated analyses of epidemiological data may help to answer this question, observational data can never unequivocally provide evidence of causation. Here we discuss the potential utility of genetic information in determining the causal basis of the relationship of cigarette smoking and depression.
烟民经常描述吸烟的抗焦虑和抗抑郁作用，但有证据表明，吸烟本身可能会增加负面情绪，因此这种关联的因果方向仍不清楚。尽管对流行病学数据进行越来越复杂的分析可能有助于回答这个问题，但观察性数据永远不能明确提供因果关系的证据。在这里，我们讨论了遗传信息在确定吸烟与抑郁之间关系的因果基础方面的潜在效用。
