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Nicotine may protect people from contracting the coronavirus, according to new research in France, where more trials are planned to assess whether the substance could be used to prevent or treat the deadly disease.
The findings come after researchers at a major Paris hospital examined 343 coronavirus patients along with 139 people infected with the disease with milder symptoms.
They found that a low number of them smoked, compared to smoking rates of around 35 percent in the general population in France.
“Among these patients, only five percent were smokers,” said Zahir Amoura, co-author of the study and professor of internal medicine.
The research echoed similar findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine last month that suggested 12.6 percent of 1,000 infected people in China were smokers. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), that was a much lower figure than the number of regular smokers in China’s general population, about 26%.
The theory is that nicotine could bind to cellular receptors, thereby blocking the virus from entering cells and spreading in the body, according to renowned neurobiologist Jean-Pierre Changeux of the Pasteur Institute in France, who was also co-author of the study.
The researchers await approval from the French health authorities to carry out further clinical trials.
They plan to use nicotine patches on healthcare workers at the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris, where the initial research was done, to see if it protects them from contracting the virus.
They have also requested the use of patches in hospitalized patients to see if it helps reduce symptoms and also in more severe intensive care patients, Amoura said.
Researchers are investigating whether nicotine could help prevent “cytokine storms,” a rapid overreaction of the immune system that scientists believe could play a key role in fatal cases of COVID-19.
But with more research needed, experts are not encouraging people to quit smoking or use nicotine patches as a measure of protection against the virus.
“We must not forget the harmful effects of nicotine,” said Jerome Salomon, France’s top health official.
“Non-smokers shouldn’t use nicotine substitutes,” which causes side effects and addiction, he warned.
Tobacco is the number one killer in France, with an estimated 75,000 smoking-related deaths per year.
France is one of the countries most affected by the coronavirus in Europe, with more than 21,000 deaths and more than 155,000 infections reported.
This story has been published from a source of the cable agency without modifications to the text. Only the owner has been changed.
