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* Remember that smoking is harmful to your health, more in an emergency situation like the coronavirus pandemic *
More than four months after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in China, which today has 2.7 million cases and almost 190 thousand deaths Throughout the world, science continues to offer various theories to stop an infection that every day raises new questions.
And one of them is the possibility that nicotine be a kind of “protective” for some coronavirus patients.
This is believed by a group of French researchers, who from preliminary evidence and in a study still to review, are preparing to carry out various tests to analyze why, according to their figures, the samples of patients with hospitalized coronaviruses do not correspond to samples of smokers.
The research, carried out by the renowned French neurobiologist Jean-Pierre Changeux, corresponds to the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, which carried out a study among 350 hospitalized and 150 mild patients, all positive e Covid-19 diagnostic tests. According to research, only 5% were smokers. The striking thing is that the figure is equivalent to 80% less smokers among coronavirus patients than among the general population of the same sex and age in France.
The study suggests that this phenomenon is based on the nicotine prevents or retains the coronavirus to look at the cellular receptor that you use regularly, preventing it from penetrating into cells and spreading in the body. This, because it is the same nicotine that binds to the cellular receptor.
In addition, the study has an antecedent: A study conducted in late March in China and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, with basically the same premise. More than 12% of a thousand people investigated with the infection were smokers, a figure very far from the total number of smokers in China, which is almost 30%.
For him Dr. Guillermo Solar, Bronchopulmonary of Vidaintegra, the study starts from several facts that are still presumptive: “The inductive logical analysis is correct; first it is based on the fact that the interaction of the converting enzyme is the one that allows the virus to enter the cell, and in some way participates in the genesis of inflammation in the alveolus and pneumonia ”, he points out.
“So by indirect mechanisms, nicotine through the pathway of a substance, would inhibit this converter and that would not allow it to be activated by the virus. ”
Is it then a protective effect? “Yes, it is a protective effect, but from pneumonia, not from coronavirus“He assures.
“We tend to forget that the 85% of the cases with this virus are asymptomatic or oligosymptomatic. They are cases of difficult prescription“Adds Solar. Therefore, we are talking about only 1% when we point to those people who develop pneumonia, because the majority of people who die do so due to complications related to the metabolic stress that the viral infection supposes, and failures such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and others”.
“Then, the subject dies under the influence of the coronavirus picture, but in reality what fails is the adaptive response of other organs that are previously deteriorated “, explains the specialist.
So could this mean that if I start smoking, I will save myself from the virus?
No, it is not that simple.
Obviously, the study remembers and stresses the dangers of smoking. -even before this pandemic- and advise that whoever practices this custom stop doing it right away. Smoking alters the lungs and its harmful health effects are known, such as cancer or heart accidents.
The researchers insist that are not encouraging the population to smoke, which carries other life-threatening health risks and kills 50% of those who consume it. While nicotine can protect people from the virus, smokers often develop more severe symptoms due to toxic effect of tobacco smoke on the lungs.
For the World Health Organization (WHO), “smokers are likely are more vulnerable to Covid-19, since the act of smoking involves putting your fingers (and cigarettes, which may be contaminated) to your lips, which increases the possibility of virus transmission from hand to mouth ”.
“Smokers can also suffer from lung disease or reduced lung capacity, which greatly increases the risk of serious disease. “
Furthermore, the WHO recalls that “certain devices used for smoking, such as water pipes, usually involve the shared use of nozzles and hoses, which can facilitate the transmission of Covid-19 in community and social settings. ”
“Conditions that increase oxygen needs or reduce the body’s ability to use it properly lead to an increased risk of serious lung conditions such as pneumonia”, Maintains the health entity.
As for the study, the scientists hope that the final authorization will be obtained and with the support of the French Ministry of Health, they will be administered nicotine patches at different doses in three trials: one preventive for health personnel to determine their eventual protective role and two others therapeutic to treat patients hospitalized and at more seriously ill in intensive care.
“In scientific analysis this is inductive knowledge: nicotine produces an effect that would protect pneumonia, but that must also be scientifically proven ”, says Dr. Solar.
“Right now the premise that science people have is that any tip of the thread we have can unravel the skeinTherefore, all these positions are well received. Research lines must be generated because this is a mutant virus from an already mutant virus, and which is also generally harmless. Its grace is contagiousness, the speed with which it moves. ”
“Through the development of this theory, scientists can argue that there is a protective effect, although there is actually only one protective effect here: the vaccine”, Sentence.
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