To wonder why they haven’t said anything about smokers?

[NailsNeedDoing]

It occurred to me, while I was having a cigarette, that I haven’t heard anything about how smokers are affected by covid, which seems a bit odd considering covid is a respiratory illness and we know how bad smoking is for lungs.

We’ve heard about all the other extra risk factors like obesity, age, ethnicity, living in an area of deprivation but unless I’ve missed it, I haven’t heard anything about smokers. Are they just not collecting that data or something?

Courtesy of everybody's favourite rag

[quote Winterlight]This is an interesting thread.

Studies also show that smoking reduces the occurrence and severity of Ulcerative Colitis. Again it’s thought that nicotine may be the key.

www.everydayhealth.com/ulcerative-colitis/symptoms/link-between-smoking-ulcerative-colitis/[/quote]
it's never been proved that nicotine is the key. Vaping is coming up in research for instance as causing rather than helping an impaired gut barrier ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/study-e-cigarettes-trigger-inflammation-in-the-gut

but yes, UC often flares when people give up smoking and smokers tend to have an easier course, whereas with Crohn's disease it is the opposite.

Parkinsons is another condition where smoking appears protective

All those conditions have elusive links to genes, to gut bacteria, to vagus nerve activity

@JanuaryBlus

If you smoke your hardly bothered about Covid. If you were you'd be trying to give up or already have.

What a silly thing to say. Obviously people who smoke don't want covid. They also don't want to be hit by cars or fall down a mine shaft. Just because you have an addiction that is bad for your health doesn't mean you've lost all interest in trying to stay alive in the meantime.

I heard several times, in the first few months of the pandemic that smokers were less likely to catch it but also more likely to be affected badly when they do catch it.

Hello, @NailsNeedDoing - we're just letting you know that we've moved this over to the Coronavirus topic now.

Thanks.

interesting heard about this last year nictotine killing the virus but never thought much about it

they'll never advertise this of course

People asking smokers if they exercise, my brother is in the military's, he super fit, he runs spartan races, ue smoke between 15 to 20 a day

I read that they are less likely to catch it and less likely to be hospitalised if they do, but once hospitalised outcomes are worse. Hence the nicotine withdrawal theory and nicotine patch trials

You could well be right, PinkTonic, but it was interesting to hear it's the French doing the nicotine patch trials; I have to wonder why they bother with the number on 20 Gauloises a day!!

Great thread though ... Covid, smokers and mentions of the obese
It's like Mumsnet bingo

I've got my own theory.....smokers have more vitamin d because they are always outside smoking! They pop out quite regularly and if at work they are more likely to have their lunch break outside where as I would stay in the office for example. Just a theory!

It's interesting as smoking can help or cause some autoimmune disease...and some treatments for covid are for that as well...and steroids...

components of cigarette smoke have both immune activating and immune-suppressive effects

www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-3-health-effects/3-17-inflammatory-conditions-and-autoimmune-disease

From that link "The role of smoking in cancer, lung diseases and cardiovascular diseases is now widely recognised. The fact that smoking also affects the immune system is under-appreciated. In fact, smoking has wide-ranging and severe impacts on the immune system. It increases inflammation levels, increases the risk of allergic conditions, increases the incidence of autoimmune diseases, decreases immune responses to infectious diseases..."

Wonder if it therefore supresses the overactive immune response to covid therefore perhaps

@Sethy38

*Department of Health hates smokers, that's why they're not mentioning it*

To be fair - they are justified in perhaps not being BFFs with smokers.

Smokers should absolutely be their BFFs. Taxes on cigarettes are what props up the NHS. They would be fucked if everyone suddenly packed it in.

I've got my own theory.....smokers have more vitamin d because they are always outside smoking!

Nice one, Dontforgetyourbrolly, but in the UK??!!!
Granted we had a good summer, but it's needed now and from looking out the window I'd say the only vitamin D we'll be getting for a while is in a bottle

Then again I'm not aware how long it lasts in the body ... anyone know?

We have a covid positive resident at work who smokes. She's 84,and has virtually no symptoms compared to our other positive ones who have never smoked in their lives!

Said lady is still going out for her cigs every day, maybe it's all the fresh air she's getting in the garden - we're all baffled at work!

@Puzzledandpissedoff

I've got my own theory.....smokers have more vitamin d because they are always outside smoking!

Nice one, Dontforgetyourbrolly, but in the UK??!!!
Granted we had a good summer, but it's needed now and from looking out the window I'd say the only vitamin D we'll be getting for a while is in a bottle

Then again I'm not aware how long it lasts in the body ... anyone know?

NHS says: "From about late March/early April to the end of September, most people should be able to get all the vitamin D we need from sunlight."

"In the UK, sunlight doesn't contain enough UVB radiation in winter (October to early March) for our skin to be able to make vitamin D.

During these months, we rely on getting our vitamin D from food sources (including fortified foods) and supplements.

Using sunbeds isn't a recommended way of making vitamin D."

So it doesn't sound as though what you get in summer will last.

^it's never been proved that nicotine is the key. Vaping is coming up in research for instance as causing rather than helping an impaired gut barrier ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/study-e-cigarettes-trigger-inflammation-in-the-gut^

Goodness me, I'm used to trawling through bad vaping science but this reaches a whole new level!

They used a sub-ohm tank with a 70/30 PG/VG mix. Nobody vapes like that! They don't say what temperature or wattage was used, or give details of puff duration or frequency. So while this would be an intolerably harsh vape at the best of times, they probably also burnt it (vape researchers have plenty of form for this). Having exposed some mice to this unknown regime of probably burnt vapour for an hour a day for a week, and an hour a day for 3 months, they then looked at the mice's colon cells and found some changes.

The other part of the experiment was even more fucking stupid. They cultured some mouse colon cells and then exposed the cultures directly to the probably burnt vapour and again observed some changes.

They used 6mg and 0mg eliquid and observed more damage from the 0mg liquid. They suggest that the nicotine had a protective effect.

PG is propylene glycol and VG is vegetable glycerine. Both are considered generally safe and are widely used in all sorts of personal and household products, including those that are ingested, inhaled and shoved up your bum.

Just don't blow burnt vape clouds up your arse and you'll be fine.

@SomewhatBored

This is a brilliant argument on the issue

Not straightforward

fullfact.org/economy/does-smoking-cost-much-it-makes-treasury/

I saw something the other day which said that smokers seem to be less likely to catch Covid but if they do they tend to get it severely.

I wonder if it’s partly because there are very few people in the most at risk age category still smoking, it will have finished them off before they reach 80?

Thanks, SomewhatBored - that's something else I've learned today

@CrotchBurn

A study showed that weirdly smokers seem less at risk of complications and they wondered if it was due to nicotine

Do you have a link to this study? Never heard of it.

I work nights so I don't get much sun light. Maybe I'm a vampire in disguise.

If you read the paper I posted earlier @QuestionEverythingOrBeASheep and the one below, there are references for lots of studies on smoking and COVID 19 that have contradictory results, including the one that I think CrotchBurn is referring to that found ex smokers had worse outcomes than current smokers and the French study that suggested that smokers seemed less likely to end up in ICU with COVID 19 than non smokers.

tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2020/08/20/tobaccocontrol-2020-055933

This is a good page - www.qeios.com/read/UJR2AW.11

It's a 'living rapid evidence review' of smoking and covid studies as they come in.

The conclusions so far: Across 345 studies, recorded current but not past smoking prevalence was generally lower than national prevalence estimates. Current smokers were at reduced risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 and former smokers were at increased risk of hospitalisation, disease severity and mortality compared with never smokers.

The rest of the results are more mixed.

The French NRT patch trial is interesting but if I remember correctly they are only including non-smokers. It could tell us whether pharmaceutical nicotine is a useful therapeutic in general. If it is, that's great because it's cheap, plentiful and low risk.

What it won't tell us is whether hospitalised smokers have better outcomes if they are given patches and so avoid abrupt nicotine withdrawal.

Does anyone know of a trial that's measuring that? It would be awful if the French trial was inconclusive and this other, very different potential benefit was missed.