11– 13 We lacked information on other potential confounders, including use of alcohol or illicit drugs, exposure to passive smoking and maternal BMI.
The questionnaire also covered alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug exposures of women in the past 90 days.
Importantly, comorbidities including aging, illicit drug use, exposure to antiretrovirals, cardiovascular disease, and insulin resistance could potentially contribute to cognitive impairment [62,63].
Firstly, it indicates that illicit cross border exposure to direct to consumer advertising has the potential to modify drug use, even where such advertising is technically prohibited.
42 Premature deaths from natural causes are likely to be influenced by adverse lifestyle and social factors associated with the presence of mental illness such as smoking, use of alcohol and illicit drugs, and exposure to poor housing and social conditions 40 43—or the adverse effects of antipsychotic medication.
52 53 Findings are also inconsistent with regard to links with prenatal exposure to illicit drugs.
These components include previous preterm birth [ 22], smoking during pregnancy [ 23], fetal exposure to illicit drugs [ 24], and stillbirth [ 25].
In a postmortem analysis of 129 deceased illicit drug abusers, cocaine exposure was significantly associated with glomerular ischemia, arteriosclerosis and hypertensive-ischemic nephropathy [ 26].
Smoking may be one important stage or inducing factor for using illicit drugs and early exposure to nicotine may precipitate the development of stimulant addiction [ 8– 11].
We excluded articles relating to the abuse of ADHD medication alone, case reports, articles relating to exposure of illicit drugs or alcohol in utero, foetal alcohol syndrome, and to cigarette smokers only.
It is well known that maternal self-reports on drug use history proved to be unreliable therefore an objective biological marker which can yield a cumulative reflection of long-term exposure to illicit drugs is needed.
