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A group of researchers in Paris is planning to examine whether nicotine patches will help prevent or lessen the effects of the new coronavirus.
It comes after a French study found that few people hospitalized, or at home, with coronaviruses were regular smokers compared to the general population.
The team theorized that nicotine could prevent the virus from infecting cells or that nicotine was preventing the immune system from overreacting to the virus, The Guardian reported.
To test this theory, the scientists plan to put nicotine patches on COVID-19 patients, both in and out of intensive care, and on front-line workers to see if the stimulant has any effect in preventing the spread of the virus.
French researchers plan to give nicotine patches (pictured) to hospitalized patients with coronavirus, intensive care patients, and front-line workers
It comes after a study found that 4.4% of the 350 hospitalized coronavirus patients were regular smokers and 5.3% of the 130 patients at home smoked compared to the general population. Pictured: A man in a face mask smokes a cigarette in Paris, France, on March 16.
For the study, conducted at Pitié Salpêtrière, part of the Hôpitaux de Paris, the team examined 480 patients who tested positive for the virus.
Three hundred and fifty were hospitalized and the rest recovered at home.
The results showed that of the hospitalized patients, with a median age of 65 years, only 4.4 percent were regular smokers. But among those at home, with an average age of 44, 5.3 percent smoked.
In comparison, among the general population, 40 percent of those ages 44 to 53 smoke, and about 11 percent of those ages 65 to 75 smoke.
The researchers found that far fewer smokers appear to have contracted the virus, or if they have, their symptoms are less severe.
The scientists theorized that nicotine could prevent the virus from infecting cells or that nicotine was preventing the immune system from overreacting to the virus. Photo Shows: A man is taken to an ambulance at the West Revere Health Center in Revere, Massachusetts, April 21.
“Our cross-sectional study strongly suggests that those who smoke every day are much less likely to develop severe or symptomatic infection with Sars-CoV-2 compared to the general population,” the study says.
‘The effect is significant. Divide the risk by five for outpatients and by four for those admitted to the hospital. We rarely see this in medicine.
The team says it does not advocate for someone to 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 blocking the virus from entering cells in the body.
Furthermore, the authors theorize that nicotine may decrease the immune system’s overreaction to the virus, leading to serious complications in some patients.
The researchers will verify the study results by giving nicotine patches to hospital patients, those in intensive care and front-line workers.
This is not the first article to suggest that nicotine can prevent coronavirus.
A French study from the Pierre et Marie Curie University found that only 8.5 percent of the 11,000 hospitalized patients with coronavirus were smokers compared to 25.4 percent of the country’s population.
And a study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that 12.6 percent of 1,100 Chinese patients were current smokers and 1.9 percent were former smokers.
However, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said that cigarettes may increase the risk of contracting the disease.
“People who smoke cigarettes may have an increased risk of infection with the virus that causes COVID-19, and may have poorer COVID-19 results,” the agency told Bloomberg News.
The FDA previously warned of “worse outcomes” for coronavirus among smokers, but did not specify what that meant.
