SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) – A new study by UCSF says smoking makes a drastic difference in coronavirus patients making the progression of the illness much worse.
Researchers found that among 11,590 COVID patients, those who smoke had their risk of disease progression nearly doubled.
The study found that current or former smokers had more severe conditions or died as the disease worsened.
KRON4 spoke to a medical professor about the study.
Dr. Stanton Glantz: There’s a substantial increase in risk for a variety of technical reasons, having to do with limitations in the study. The actual risk is probably higher than just the doubling.
Reporter: Do we know if this applies in anyway to vaping?
Dr. Glantz: Well no one has yet studied vaping and coronavirus specifically, but there is a lot of evidence that vaping disables the cilia, which are little microscopic hairs in your nose and upper respiratory tract, which push out captured, which push our viruses and bacteria so just, vaping is just like smoking in terms of that. We know that vaping depresses immune function in your lungs just like smoking, and that vaping triggers inflammatory processes in the lungs just like smoking. So while we don’t have any direct evidence on vaping and COVID-19, if you look at what we know about the biology of vaping compared to the biology of smoking, they’re basically the same. And so, I would think that vaping would do the same thing. But as of now, there’s no direct evidence on the effects of smoking or vaping on getting infected with coronavirus. There is evidence showing that smokers are more likely to get the flu and more likely to get SARS, another coronavirus induced infection and we know that people who smoke have worse courses in terms of these other infectious diseases.
Watch full interview with Dr. Glantz above.
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