Bipolar adolescents continue to have elevated substance use disorder risk as young adults
"We also made another interesting finding -- that those originally diagnosed with bipolar disorder who continued to have symptoms five years later were at an even higher risk for cigarette smoking and substance use disorder than those whose symptoms were reduced either because of remission from bipolar disorder or from treatment," says Timothy Wilens, MD, chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Mass. General Hospital for Children and co-director of the MGH Center for Addiction Medicine, who led both studies. "Both those with active symptoms and those whose symptoms had improved were at greater risk than our control group. The original study, published in the June 2008 issue of Drug and Alcohol Dependence, analyzed extensive data -- including family histories, information from primary care physicians and the results of structured psychiatric interviews -- on 105 early adolescents diagnosed with bipolar disorder and a control group of 98 with no mood disorders. A...