Ali salimi asl,1Elham Yadegarifard,2,*Narjes Seddighi,3maryam mabani,4amin reza nikpoor,5
1. Student Research Committee, Faculty of Medicine, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran 2. Student Research Committee, Faculty of Medicine, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran 3. Student Research Committee, Faculty of Para-Medicine, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran 4. Department of Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Hormozgan University of Medical Science, Bandar Abbas, Iran. 5. Department of Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Hormozgan University of Medical Science, Bandar Abbas, Iran.
Introduction: SARS CoV-2 virus is the cause of COVID-19 disease. The first case of the disease was found in China in early December 2019, and over time it has spread around the world, causing the COVID-19 pandemic. The disease is mainly related to the respiratory system, causes severe acute respiratory infections and is associated with unprecedented high mortality. Smoking endangers the immune system and affects almost all parts of the body, increasing the chances of developing a respiratory infection (such as a viral infection), severe illness, and hospitalization and it is a risk factor for common chronic diseases. Due to the fact that tobacco can have adverse effects on body systems, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of tobacco on the incidence, transmission, prognosis and severity of the disease in Covid-19 patients.
Methods: Article selection were conducted through advanced search in science direct, Pubmed, google scholar database and without time limit, using three keywords derived from MeSH (Covid-19, smoking, tobacco) and limiting the search to keywords in the title and abstract. From the 97 available articles based on the content of the abstracts, 46 articles were selected. The articles were studied and key points of each were identified.
Results: Covid-19 virus can infect various systems of the body. The most important system that is damaged during this disease is the respiratory system, which in severe cases leads to pneumonia and ARDS. The virus also affects the cardiovascular system, causing coronary artery obstruction and can affect the gastrointestinal, renal and nervous systems.
Cigarettes are composed of more than 7,000 toxic chemicals and smoking and exposure will lead to disease such as cancer, pneumonia, cardiovascular diseases, etc by affecting various systems of the body (respiratory system, cardiovascular system, urinary and renal system, digestive system and nervous system). according to the WHO, smokers are more exposed to the disease by increasing hand-to-mouth contact and increasing the risk of transmitting the virus.
Many studies show that the incidence of Covid-19 in patients with active smoking was much lower than in patients with no history of smoking. This may be due to the presence of nicotine in cigarettes, which has an inhibitory effect on proinflammatory cytokines and plays an important role in the Pathophysiology of Covid-19 disease. However, more studies are needed to investigate the effect of tobacco, cigarette and their contents on the incidence of Covid-19 disease.
The results of various studies show that smoking, by affecting the prognosis and outcome of Covid-19 disease, increases the severity of the disease, the need for hospitalization and ICU, as well as the death rate and challenges treatment.
Covid-19 has changed the attitude and idea of smokers towards tobacco; so that most studies show that people are more tendency to quit tobacco.
Conclusion: According to the results of various studies, smokers are less likely to develop COVID-19 disease, but the rate of transmission, disease severity, death, and the need for hospitalization in smokers has increased, making treatment challenging. Therefore, since smoking can increase the severity of the disease, it can be concluded that smoking and cigarette cessation can help improve the function of the respiratory system.