To beat stress and anxiety, people resort to unhealthy coping strategies like smoking or drinking. However, it can do more harm and can expose the body to the virus. ARCHANA JYOTI tells you more
Liquor, cigarettes and other tobacco products like gutkha and khaini may give you temporary relief from stress during the COVID-19 lockdown, but doctors say that giving in to such temptations may hit your immune system and increase the chances of getting infected with the deadly pathogen.
Smoking is known to weaken the body’s ability to respond effectively to infections. Smokers may also already have lung disease or reduced lung capacity which would greatly increase the risk of serious illness.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDCP) have warned that smoking can expose people to serious complications from COVID-19 causing pneumonia which is different from the most common cases that people are admitted to hospitals for.
Cases of coronavirus pneumonia tend to affect the lungs, instead of just small parts.
Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, deputy director, Center For Cancer Epidemiology at Tata Memorial Center in Mumbai cites the findings of a study published in the Chinese Medical Journal which undertook research among patients affected by the coronavirus.
“It found that those with a history of smoking were 14 times more likely to develop pneumonia than who did not smoke at all,” he says.
He adds that early evidence shows that the ACE2 gene expression which the novel coronavirus uses to infect cells, is significantly higher in smokers than in non-smokers, thereby suggesting a higher susceptibility among smokers. Therefore, the entire cellular alteration that happens because of chronic smoking predisposes the body to infection and subsequent mortality.
The mode of transmission of the COVID-19 infection is through the respiratory epithelium which is the lining of our breathing tract, explain experts. This breathing tract is lined by a certain barrier called the ciliary epithelium which is known to get damaged in chronic smokers. “Now, when this immunological barrier is absent, the virus has a free entry into body’s circulation leading to infection and subsequent damage,” says Chaturvedi.
Yet another study of more than 1,000 COVID-19 patients published in the New England Journal of Medicine in February 2020 found that smokers — both past and present — fared poorly, with smokers comprising more than 25 per cent of those that needed mechanical ventilation, admission to an intensive care unit, or who died.
In fact health experts have advised the smokers to dump the butt as this is the absolute best time to quit smoking.
“Quitting during this pandemic could not only save your life, but by preventing the need for your treatment in a hospital, you might also save someone else’s life,” says Dr Smita Deshpande, professor of the psychiatry department of the Delhi-based RML hospital.
Doctors tells you that the virus seems to attack the body by attaching to a binding receptor called angiotensin-converting enzyme-2, or ACE-2. Tobacco use may increase the expression of ACE-2. That is why doctors and researchers speculate that smokers may become infected with more copies of the virus than other patients. Consuming alcohol too can be risky. The WHO has warned that alcohol is an unhelpful coping strategy to combat stress during lockdown which has been introduced by various countries worldwide to contain the spread of the Coronavirus which has taken toll of over one million lives.
In fact experts as also the WHO have cautioned against turning to alcohol to cope with the coronavirus lockdown as it can have severe implications on mental and physical health.
It recommends that people should be minimising the unhelpful coping strategies.
Dr Aiysha Malik, technical officer for the WHO’s department of mental health, said: “For people without addictions, using substances will not help to manage the stress of self-isolation. They can make things worse.”
She said that the WHO wanted to ensure people look after their mental wellbeing by eating healthily, exercising and sleeping properly.
Dr Malik added: “When we’re staying at home routines are very important for creating a sense of structure.
Experts also points out as WHO also mentions, people who smoke are likely to touch their fingers to the lips and, therefore, the risk of transmission from the fingers to the mouth is high. Also, if a person already has a smoking-related disease such as the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, then the chance of developing Covid-19 is also high say the experts.
They assert the importance of healthy habits such as eating healthy diet, getting regular sleep, managing anxiety, exercising and strengthening one’s immune system.