As the world confronts the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers
have been focused on a curious statistic.
The virus appears to kill more men than women.
And some fear smoking could be one of the
reasons why.
-Why is it that you have more people surviving in South Korea
than in Italy?
In Korea, smoking prevalence among women is very
low, whereas in Italy, smoking prevalence is very high,
particularly with men.
Perhaps it’s not just gender.
It may be behaviors, namely smoking.
This observation is sparking research into Covid-19’s impact on
smokers and a new generation of vapers.
But while that work is just beginning, scientists are racing
toward discoveries.
And University of California researcher Anna Song
says that many of these will depend on scientific revelations
from the past.
-In this age of Covid, where things are happening so quickly and it is
a new virus, there are lessons that we’ve learned through science.
Scientists have been studying the connection between smoking and
the flu for decades, and cell biologist Robert Tarran says the
results are clear.
Smokers are at much higher risk.
-Smokers are about twice as likely to get influenza than non-smokers.
And then if they get it, typically the outcome is a bit
more severe.
And the reason this happens, so, normally your lung, it
has multiple ways of getting rid of viruses and bacteria.
So, it has all these natural antibiotics and
natural ways of cleaning itself, which are, uh, just present and
they’re working all the time just to try and help keep you healthy.
But in smokers, all those processes
don’t work quite as well.
So, there’s more chance of viruses and
bacteria getting into your deep lung.
-Most people can fight off Covid.
What they say is about 80 percent are able to feel like they have the
flu but they’ll be OK.
Where we’re getting into trouble is that it can
lead to severe pulmonary distress.
Smoking is a risk factor for having this disease progress, be
incredibly severe and lead to mortality.
While Covid-19 is a new concern, smoking’s detrimental effects on
health have long been well known.
-Cigarette smoking contributes substantially to mortality from
certain specific diseases and to the overall death rate.
But vapers have countered that their habit is different.
Sean Hannity is among those who
recently went so far as to assert that vaping might help protect
people from Covid-19.
There’s little to back that claim.
-There is no data to suggest that.
There is no scientific evidence that vaping will protect you from Covid.
In fact, as a scientist, I would hypothesize the opposite.
-When we first started doing vaping research, because there’s a
lot less chemicals in, uh, e-cigarettes compared to
cigarettes, you’d predict that it wouldn’t have as big an effect on
the body.
Uh, but the studies we’ve done in the lungs, we’re seeing a
lot of effects of vaping.
And it’s just, you know, like that goes back to the idea that biology,
you can’t always predict what’s going to happen.
Tarran has been studying vaping since 2013 and the impact of a
chemical they both have in common: nicotine.
One of the ways nicotine seems to harm the
lung is by causing an overproduction of enzymes,
called proteases.
These proteases are part of the lung’s immune system,
but too much is a bad thing.
For instance, chronic elevations of
them can lead to emphysema.
-Proteases are these, uh, I always call them my molecular scissors.
We found that, uh, vapers and smokers had similarly elevated
levels of proteases in their lungs.
Uh, we also found that it was actually the nicotine
that was causing this.
George Mason University researchers
Jim Olds and Nadine Kabbani
say the body’s reaction to nicotine may be even more
problematic with Covid-19 because of its close relationship to
another coronavirus that swept through parts of the world in 2003:
SARS.
-March 2003.
Panic grips Hong Kong as a deadly new virus
sweeps through the city,
one of the most densely populated in the world.
-So, it’s a new virus.
It shows up suddenly.
It, uh, has a very high fatality rate.
Uh, there is no treatment.
SARS gains entry into lung epithelial cells in precisely the
same manner that Covid-19 does.
It binds to the very same protein.
It enters those cells and then it
wreaks havoc on those cells in the lung in a, in a very similar manner.
Therefore, what we learned clinically during SARS is relevant
to what we are experiencing today.
One of those lessons?
Nicotine can help these viruses find their
way into healthy cells.
-These lung epithelial cells, they have receptors for nicotine also.
And what happens when these cells see nicotine, the virus sees
more of its receptor and therefore there’s a bigger target.
So, essentially, nicotine is acting to
render those lung epithelial cells more vulnerable.
-A really alarming population is individuals who are actually vaping
and using electronic cigarettes.
The rates of vaping in young individuals are very high, so now
we’re actually really concerned about this population.
-The science on vaping is relatively new.
But what is emerging is that it is not as safe as
everyone assumed it to be.
I would not be surprised if we start to see
data on less desirable outcomes from Covid.
Even as scientists scramble to understand these connections,
everyone from the F.D.A. to New York City’s mayor is now raising
the alarm.
-If you are a smoker or a vaper,
that does make you more vulnerable.
If you are a smoker or a vaper, this is a very good time to
stop that habit and we will help you.