Study – which stresses serious health risks of smoking – suggest substance in tobacco may lower risk of getting coronavirus

[Annikki]

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.

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.

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.

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.

 

[AnnieT]

I wonder if it leaves a coating on the lungs. My husband has U Colitis in remission. He is a smoker and both times he has given up, his colitis has got really bad to the point of being hospitalised. He began smoking again and that is now both times he got back into remission. Seemingly it coats the bowel ... not in a good way ... but in the UC it is helpful!

 

[Rufous McKinney]

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.

There may be major differences between smoking cigarettes....(a product which contains many other chemicals and additives) versus the effect of nicotine itself, as a substance with medicinal qualities.

Clean tobacco...has been used by many cultures...for healing modalities.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC526783/

It looks like nicotine may- have some ability to suppress Immune Responses...involving interferon.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11481-019-09845-2

Perhaps its reducing the cytokine storm...

Its a complex topic but nicotine is a seriously interesting plant alkaloid.

 

[andyguitar]

If anyone wants to take this further i suggest you put the following into your search box...".Nicotine stimulates nerve growth factor in the lung." Be prepared for the unexpected. But there are safer ways to get nicotine than smoking.

 

[andyguitar]

Plus, smoking does increase you're likelihood of getting a fatal lung infection.

An alternative is a nicotine mouth spray. Might be a better way of getting nicotine into the lungs than the patches the french researchers are going to trial. From what i have looked at so far it seems to me that it is nicotine that could be having the protective effect due to its stimulation of nerve growth factor (NGF) in the lungs.

 

[Annikki]

An alternative is a nicotine mouth spray. Might be a better way of getting nicotine into the lungs than the patches the french researchers are going to trial. From what i have looked at so far it seems to me that it is nicotine that could be having the protective effect due to its stimulation of nerve growth factor (NGF) in the lungs.

Nicot

An alternative is a nicotine mouth spray. Might be a better way of getting nicotine into the lungs than the patches the french researchers are going to trial. From what i have looked at so far it seems to me that it is nicotine that could be having the protective effect due to its stimulation of nerve growth factor (NGF) in the lungs.

Nicotine gum works too. Thanks for sharing about NGF, I didn't know that. Nicotine can be poisonous in large amounts and because of this it's used as a pesticide.

 

[Annikki]

There may be major differences between smoking cigarettes....(a product which contains many other chemicals and additives) versus the effect of nicotine itself, as a substance with medicinal qualities.

Clean tobacco...has been used by many cultures...for healing modalities.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC526783/

It looks like nicotine may- have some ability to suppress Immune Responses...involving interferon.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11481-019-09845-2

Perhaps its reducing the cytokine storm...

Its a complex topic but nicotine is a seriously interesting plant alkaloid.

Yes, well cigarettes are bad and tobacco companies have made them worse by adding nicotine to them. I quit smoking using nicotine gum and since it has less nicotine, and it's in graded amounts, it certainly is safer than cigarettes. Inhaling any nicotine products, even nicotine vapor damages the lungs.

By the way, here is a list of cytokines triggered by Covid-19 (Covid cytokine storm):

IL2, IL7, IL10, GSCF, IP10, MCP1, MIP1A, and TNFα

-Source: "Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China"
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext

TNFα is also elevated in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1020595709352

As per that study, maybe use of TNFα blockers is not just a good idea for CFS patients, but for Covid-19 patients, too.

 

[roller]

just my impression...

i think nicotine may be related to the ACE2 - angiotension (II) issue...
perhaps via some agonistic/antagonistic effects.

perhaps, counteracting this ACE-issue may not fight the virus, but considerably slow it (replication...?) in some ppl.
this would mean: as soon as you stop the "counteraction", it comes back with (quite) a blast.

how can some ppl "CLEAR" the infection without any noticable antibodies?

 

[andyguitar]

i think nicotine may be related to the ACE2

Nicotine down regulates it.