11 Sep Smoking and Vaping Cause Young People to Have Worse COVID-19 Infections

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Dr. Rahman

Irfan Rahman, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator. Center for Inhalation and Flavoring Toxicological Research
University of Rochester

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Our study aimed to determine whether vaping and smoking affect Covid-19 proteins and genes and whether that effect changes depending on the age of the vaper/smoker. SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, enters cells by interacting with ACE2 and TMPRSS2-Furin proteins. We found that both of these proteins increase with age and are also increased by smoking or vaping. This suggests that older adults, smokers and vapers may be more prone to infection with SARS-Cov-2 and may be more likely to have severe complications.

MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report? 

Response: Smoking and vaping cause young people to have worse covid-19 infections. Also, we detected ACE2 and Furin in plasma, which suggests these proteins could offer an easy way to test for covid-19. Studies are in progress to further investigate this.

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work?

Response: We hope to develop a non-invasive test for covid-19 and plan to conduct further studies to better understand how SARS-Cov-2 enters cells and develop therapeutics to block entry.

Any disclosures? No tobacco or vaping industry link or support or interactions.

Citation:

Maremanda Krishna P., Sundar Isaac K., Li Dongmei, Rahman Irfan

Age-Dependent Assessment of Genes Involved in Cellular Senescence, Telomere, and Mitochondrial Pathways in Human Lung Tissue of Smokers, COPD, and IPF: Associations With SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19 ACE2-TMPRSS2-Furin-DPP4 Axis
Frontiers in Pharmacology     VOLUME=11     YEAR=2020 PAGES=1356
https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fphar.2020.584637     DOI=10.3389/fphar.2020.584637

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Last Updated on September 11, 2020 by Marie Benz MD FAAD