COVID-19 has truly wreaked havoc in people’s lives across the globe. Today it has infected over 16 lakh people and claimed lives of over 95,000 people.?
It is no news that the novel coronavirus when enters our body, it goes straight to the lungs. However, novel research reveals the kind of impact it has on smokers.?
The research (published in European Respiratory Journal) led by Dr Janice Leung of the University of British Columbia and St. Paul’s Hospital looked at the ACE-2 (which stands for angiotensin-converting enzyme II) receptors in our body. These apparently act as an open door for the COVID-19 coronavirus to infect our lung cells.?
Research has revealed that people who suffer from COPD as well as who smoke constantly has far more of these open doors than healthier lungs.
If the lungs of a particular patient infected with COVID-19 are weak against the virus from the beginning, it is only going to cause more damage to the health as well as the end outcome. Researchers saw something similar while looking at case data in China.
Dr Leung explains, “The data emerging from China suggested that patients with COPD were at higher risk of having worse outcomes from COVID-19. We hypothesized that this could be because the levels of ACE-2 in their airways might be increased compared to people without COPD, which could possibly make it easier for the virus to infect the airway.”
When they looked at lung samples of individuals with COPD and compared them to those who didn’t have the disorder, they saw the ACE-2 levels were considerably higher in comparison.?
Moreover, people who smoked too had high levels of ACE-2, regardless if they had COPD or didn’t.
In case you were thinking it is too late to kick the habit, it isn’t. Researchers compared the cases between people who have quit smoking and people who have never smoked before, and they found ACE-2 in similar concentrations. Leung concludes stating, “This suggests that there has never been a better time to quit smoking to protect yourself from COVID-19.”