does nicotine protect against covid?

Does nicotine protect against covid? This question has animated the scientific community since the coronavirus outbreak began. L’Assistance Publique des Hospitals de Paris (AP-HP), which is conducting a new study on the subject, builds on two elements established by previous work:

• The rate of active smokers is “significantly lower in the covid-19 population than in the general population“
• IS “use of nicotine replacement therapy in smokers is associated with a significant decrease in the risk of hospitalization for covid-19“.

Read also: Containment: what if it was the right time to quit smoking?

Virus gateways blocked

But what do these observations mean? The most likely hypothesis is that nicotine protects against infection by preventing the virus from entering and spreading in cells.

How? “Or what? To infect the cells it targets, SARS-CoV-2 uses cellular ACE2 receptors as a gateway. Nicotine would block these receptors. So if the receptors are blocked, there are no gateways or infections.

It is also to test this hypothesis that the AP-HP launched on November 20 a study on over 1,600 nurses recruited in different health facilities.

The goal of this study called Nicovid Prev: to test whether wearing nicotine patches for 4-5 months offers a preventative effect against disease. If this hypothesis were true, doctors could pre-prescribe nicotine patches to healthcare professionals.

Lungs in poor condition and fragile

Despite this protective effect, smokers remain at risk of severe coronavirus.

In fact, if the virus infects the organism despite the protective effect of nicotine, it arrives in the lungs in poor condition, which do not know how to defend against pathogens and are therefore more sensitive to infections.

In question: tobacco, on the one hand, which reduces the immune defenses of the lungs and allows the virus to settle there more easily.

On the other hand, repeated inhalation of fumes that causes chronic inflammation of the lungs and narrowing of the airways. Smokers therefore have more fragile lungs and are more vulnerable to infections, which would also be presented by followers of e-cigarettes.

No positive effects of smoking against covid

The supposed protective effect of nicotine is therefore no reason to smoke cigarettes or to vape in the hope of being protected from covid. Because as mentioned, the AP-HP underlines: “tobacco kills far more than it protects“and stay in 2020”the leading cause of preventable death“.
“There is no reason to hope for a positive risk / benefit ratio of smoking in the fight against covid-19“concludes the AP-HP.

This assumption is not even a reason to rush into nicotine substitutes. Because even if it is not toxic, nicotine is highly addictive and its use must therefore be strictly controlled.