Based on the current statistics, there are about one billion people in the world who can't get enough of puffing their cigarettes. Unfortunately, despite the health risks that come with it and the efforts of the government to limit its usage, the rate of its users continues to rise.
According to NHS, every cigarette butt you smoke can badly affect your health big time. Some of its early effects include colds, coughs, asthma, and wheezing. But as the person became more addicted to the vice, smoking can lead to fatal diseases such as cancer, emphysema, and pneumonia.
But did you know that experts recently learned another crucial reason why smokers should stop their vice soon? Recent studies reveal, smokers are more vulnerable and are more prone to suffer from worse symptoms than non-smokers.
"It has been reported that smokers who get COVID-19 tend to have more severe infections than individuals who aren't smokers", shared co-author Jason Sheltzer. Sheltzer is one of the researchers at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.
For a healthy person, the coronavirus targets the Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptors (ACE2 receptor) of the patient's lower and upper respiratory tracts. It is then when the virus would plug itself into these receptors and release their genetic material to it enabling the virus to spread and duplicate.
But for smokers, the situation is worse as lungs exposed to smoking have more ACE2 receptors as compared to its counterpart. The more receptors the lungs have, the more vulnerable the lungs are to coronavirus and the more damages it can have.
Meanwhile, for people who have already quit smoking, experts say that the team found they have lower levels of ACE2 as compared to those who are still embracing the vice, which is about 30%. Given this reason, quitting smoking can be worth it if you want to protect yourself from the coronavirus more.
Another study conducted in China, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, revealed that among the 1,000 patients observed, 12.3% of current smokers experienced severe symptoms and were required to be under intensive care. Non-smokers who were admitted to an ICU, on the other hand, has a rate of only 4.7%, as reported by Live Science.
Smoking, though can be very addictive, could cause more harm than good, not just when it comes to the coronavirus but also for other health reasons as well. With the results of the study, Jaber Alqahtani, a researcher in Respiratory Medicine at University College London, now aims to focus more on programs and campaigns that could help smokers move on and quit their addiction for good.
