Smoking and Panic Attacks

Research has well established that cigarette smoking can cause a variety of life-threatening medical illnesses. Cigarette smokers are more likely to abuse alcohol and people with alcoholism are more likely to smoke cigarettes. And studies have reported that smoking is associated with depression and anxiety disorders. Depressed people are more likely to smoke and are less able to quit. Clinical studies also have suggested that people who smoke and have a panic disorder were smokers before they developed the condition. That suggests that smoking may cause panic attacks.

In a new study of diseases among young adults, daily smoking signaled an increased risk for first occurrence of panic attacks and panic disorder. The risk of panic was found to be higher in current smokers than in those who had smoked in the past.

Panic represents a false suffocation alarm, according to Columbia University professor Donald Klein, MD. He believes that there is a high-risk group in the general population with this faulty suffocation alarm. And cigarette smoking leads to changes in lung function, bronchitis and emphysema, which might provoke panic in these vulnerable people.

Daily smoking in men and in women is related to panic attacks and disorder. New data suggests that quitting smoking will diminish the risk of panic attack or disorder. There is no evidence that prior panic attacks cause smoking or depression.

Source: Breslau , N., Klein, D.F., “Smoking and panic attacks: an epidemiological investigation,” Arch Gen Psychiatry (1999) 56:1141-1147.

By Mark S. Gold, MD, and Rena A. Prevette
© 2000 University of Florida Brain Institute