COVID-19 Digest: Could Cigarette Smoking Actually be Protective Against COVID?

<p><strong>Host</strong>: Elizabeth Esty, MD.</p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Smoking is known to increase both susceptibility and severity of all manner of colds and pneumonias, so you’d think the world's 1.1 billion smokers would be at risk in this pandemic of what at first seemed to be a just a respiratory virus. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">What’s more, tobacco smoking increases risk for COPD, diabetes and coronary disease, so it may increase risk for more severe COVID indirectly. So it’s remarkable that preliminary evidence suggests that smokers may be less likely to be harmed by COVID than non-smokers.</span> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">A story that’s gotten a fair amount of attention in the media concerns reports from France that smoking may be protective against COVID. We took a closer look and found that similar reports are coming in from across the globe, including the US. We decided to take some time to look at papers and attempt to explain this relationship. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Research By</strong>: Elizabeth Esty, MD.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Sound Editing By</strong>: Nathan Novotny.</span></p> <p><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><strong>References</strong>:</span></p> <p><a href="https://www.qeios.com/read/WPP19W.3">[1]</a> Miyara M, Tubach F, Pourcher V, et al. Low incidence of daily active tobacco smoking in patients with symptomatic COVID-19. <em>Qeios</em>. April 2020. doi:10.32388/WPP19W.3</p> <p><a href= "https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032">[2]</a> Guan W, Ni Z, Hu Y, et al. Clinical Characteristics of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in China. <em>New England Journal of Medicine</em>. 2020;382(18):1708-1720. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2002032</p> <p><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7119513/">[3]</a> Chow N, Fleming-Dutra K, Gierke R, et al. Preliminary Estimates of the Prevalence of Selected Underlying Health Conditions Among Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 — United Stat