​UC Davis Comprehensive cancer centre researchers have found that smokers have a 12 per cent increased risk of viral infection and a 48 per cent increased risk of being diagnosed with respiratory illnesses.

Melanie Dove, lead researcher commented to EurekaAlert!, “Past research has shown that smoking increases the risk of Covid-19 disease severity, but the risk of infection had been less clear.

“Our study findings show smokers have an increased risk of viral infection, including a coronavirus and respiratory illness.”

The findings are a result of re-analysis of data from the British Cold Study of “399 healthy adults to one of five ‘common cold’ viruses”.

Results were calculated by considering the overall and coronavirus specific impacts for current smokers. Every outcome (infection and illness) was modified by the virus type.

“Besides examining associations by type of virus, a key reason we re-analyzed the original British Cold Study is to report a risk ratio instead of an odds ratio,” Melanie explained. “Odds ratios may overestimate the strength of an association if an event is not rare (>10 per cent), so our results are a little lower (1.48 compared with 2.1 in the BCS). The relative risks from this study can provide an estimate of the strength of associations that can be used to guide tobacco control decisions.”

Read the full study here: https://jada.ada.org/article/S0002-8177(22)00087-3/fulltext

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