Annikki
Senior Member
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Covid-19 is truly the most bizarre disease I have ever heard of. The Guardian reported today about a French study which found smokers were less likely to become infected with the virus. This is tantamount to the most counter-intuitive assumption about who would or would not be most at risk- smokers or non-smokers.
LOL, it makes ME/CFS seem like a normal, lackluster disease by comparison. Which of course, is farthest from the truth, ME is a very strange, complicated illness.
I seriously hope that we learn something useful about ME/CFS from the coronavirus problem. Again, you must know I do think there's a viral component to ME. I could be wrong, but it's paid off doing virus research, because now I can breeze through studies about coronavirus without being confounded by the terminology.
Though I recognize most of us here are intelligent, I still think a disclaimer and warning are appropriate. Nicotine is said to be more addictive than any other substance, heroin included. Don't imagine you can quit it easily. I'm speaking from experience on this- quitting smoking is rough!!
Plus, smoking does increase you're likelihood of getting a fatal lung infection.
LOL, it makes ME/CFS seem like a normal, lackluster disease by comparison. Which of course, is farthest from the truth, ME is a very strange, complicated illness.
I seriously hope that we learn something useful about ME/CFS from the coronavirus problem. Again, you must know I do think there's a viral component to ME. I could be wrong, but it's paid off doing virus research, because now I can breeze through studies about coronavirus without being confounded by the terminology.
By the way, I need to issue a disclaimer: unless you are facing death from a coronavirus infection, I would stay the heck away from nicotine. Winding up addicted to it needlessly from panic is a very bad idea. Too many people are panicking over the virus, and making stupid choices like hoarding hydroxychloroquine and toilet paper.French researchers to test nicotine patches on coronavirus patients
Study – which stresses serious health risks of smoking – suggest substance in tobacco may lower risk of getting coronavirus
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-smokers-at-lower-risk-of-getting-coronavirus
French researchers are planning to test nicotine patches on coronavirus patients and frontline health workers after a study suggested smokers may be much less at risk of contracting the virus.
The study at a major Paris hospital suggests a substance in tobacco – possibly nicotine – may be stopping patients who smoke from catching Covid-19. Clinical trials of nicotine patches are awaiting the approval of the country’s health authorities.
However, the researchers insisted they were not encouraging the population to take up smoking, which carries other potentially fatal health risks and kills 50% of those who take it up. While nicotine may protect those from the virus, smokers who have caught it often develop more serious symptoms because of the toxic effect of tobacco smoke on the lungs, they say.
The team at Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital questioned 480 patients who tested positive for the virus, 350 of whom were hospitalised while the rest with less serious symptoms were allowed home.
It found that of those admitted to hospital, whose median age was 65, only 4.4% were regular smokers. Among those released home, with a median age of 44, 5.3% smoked.
Taking into account the age and sex of the patients, the researchers discovered the number of smokers was much lower than that in the general population estimated by the French health authority Santé Publique France at about 40% for those aged 44-53 and between 8.8% and 11.3% for those aged 65-75.
The renowned French neurobiologist Jean-Pierre Changeux, who reviewed the study, suggested the nicotine might stop the virus from reaching cells in the body preventing its spread. Nicotine may also lessen the overreaction of the body’s immune system that has been found in the most severe cases of Covid-19 infection.
The findings are to be verified in a clinical study in which frontline health workers, hospital patients with the Covid-19 virus and those in intensive care will be given nicotine patches.
The results confirm a Chinese study published at the end of March in the New England Journal of Medicine that suggested only 12.6% of 1,000 people infected with the virus were smokers while the number of smokers in China is around 28%.
In France, figures from Paris hospitals showed that of 11,000 patients admitted to hospital with Covid-19, 8.5% were smokers. The total number of smokers in France is estimated at around 25.4%.
“Our cross-sectional study strongly suggests that those who smoke every day are much less likely to develop a symptomatic or severe infection with Sars-CoV-2 compared with the general population,” the Pitié-Salpêtrière report authors wrote.
“The effect is significant. It divides the risk by five for ambulatory patients and by four for those admitted to hospital. We rarely see this in medicine,” it added.
Though I recognize most of us here are intelligent, I still think a disclaimer and warning are appropriate. Nicotine is said to be more addictive than any other substance, heroin included. Don't imagine you can quit it easily. I'm speaking from experience on this- quitting smoking is rough!!
Plus, smoking does increase you're likelihood of getting a fatal lung infection.