According to the Daily Mail , The Guardian and numerous studies being conducted around the world. Research suggests smoking reduces Covid-19 infection rates by a dramatic amount!
At Hopitaux de Paris and Université Pierre et Marie Curie, in the French capital, has claimed a potential protective effect of smoking against COVID-19 could have benefits for people with mild or severe symptoms.
While many studies have focused on patients in hospital or intensive care units, this research looked at outpatients, too.
And they found that a disproportionately small number of those – patients who were not ill enough to need a hospital bed – were smokers. This was the same phenomenon observed among the more seriously ill inpatients.
They found 5.3 per cent of 139 outpatients were smokers, compared to 4.4 per cent of 343 inpatients. In the French population, the smoke rate was 25 per cent.
The researchers, led by Dr Makoto Miyara, wrote: The [smoking rates] did not differ between outpatients and inpatients, suggesting that the protective effect of smoking covered the whole population of symptomatic (both non-severe and severe) patients.’
Our 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 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
The team says it is not advocating that anyone start smoking because cigarettes have fatal health risks.
However, French neurobiologist Jean-Pierre Changeux, who reviewed the study, told The Guardian that nicotine may be hindering the virus from entering the body’s cells.
More Studies suggest Smoking Reduces Covid-19 Infection Rates
A French study from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie found that just 8.5 percent of 11,000 hospitalized coronavirus patients were smokers compared to 25.4 percent of the country’s population.
And it also found, albeit in a small study, that people who had milder coronavirus infections and didn’t need to be admitted to hospital had lower smoking rates, too.
The paper focused on statistics but pointed to past research which suggested:
Nicotine may alter receptors inside the body called ACE-2 receptors, which the coronavirus relies on as its gateway into the body.
Any protective effect, the researchers suggested, may therefore work for people with any level of infection, not just those with severe illness.
They wrote:
‘The [smoking rates] did not differ between outpatients and inpatients, suggesting that the protective effect of smoking covered the whole population of symptomatic (both non-severe and severe) patients.
The FDA Disagrees that Smoking Reduces Covid-19 Infection Rates
However, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said that cigarettes can increase the risk of contracting the disease.
‘People who smoke cigarettes may be at increased risk of infection with the virus that causes COVID-19, and may have worse outcomes from COVID-19,’ the agency told Bloomberg News.
The FDA has previously warned about ‘worse outcomes’ for coronavirus among smokers but did not specify what that meant.
Another Study Suggesting Smoking Reduces Covid-19 Infection Rates
Another study, by America’s Centers for Disease Control of over 7,000 people who tested positive for coronavirus, found that just 1.3 per cent of them were smokers – against the 14 per cent of all Americans that the CDC says smoke.
The study also found that the smokers stood no greater chance of ending up in hospital or an ICU.
The reasons for this are unclear.
Some researchers suggest smoking could reverse one of the ways in which COVID-19 damages the lungs while others argue the lung damage caused by smoke makes the organs more susceptible to failure.
Governments in both the UK and US urge people to stop smoking to protect themselves from the virus, but scientists admit there is no clear proof cigarettes can worsen the disease
Conclusion to Smoking Reduces Covid-19 Infection Rates
Which is how governments have treated Covid from the beginning. Making claims with no evidence or even contradictory evidence which causes people to follow bad advice.
Of course, if you smoke, you should quit for many reasons but as these studies appear to show, smoking may help your body in it’s fight against Covid-19.
Links to Articles and Studies this information comes from
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