Smoking, vaping increases risk of severe COVID-19 complications, including death

People who reported smoking or vaping prior to their hospitalization for COVID-19 were more likely than their counterparts who did not smoke or vape to experience severe complications, including death, from the SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The findings are from a new study based on data from the American Heart Association's COVID-19 CVD Registry and published in PLOS ONE, a peer-reviewed, open access scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science.

Researchers examined data on people over 18 years of age who were hospitalized with COVID-19 in 107 registry-participating hospitals across the US between January 2020 to March 2021.

Smoking status was self-reported and people were classified as smoking if they reported currently using either traditional, combustible cigarettes or e-cigarette products, with no distinction between the two and no information on duration of smoking or former smoking status.

For the final analysis, records were selected for 4,086 people with a 1:2 ratio of people who smoked (1,362) to people who did not smoke (2,724), with the two groups matched for no statistically significant difference in age, sex, race, medical history or medication.

The study findings indicate smoking or vaping are associated with more severe COVID-19 independent of age, sex, race or medical history:

People who reported smoking were 45% more likely to die and 39% more likely to receive mechanical ventilation when compared with those who did not smoke.

Although the excessive risk due to smoking was independent of medical history and medication use, smoking was a stronger risk factor for death in people between 18-59 years of age and those who were white or had obesity.

The American Heart Association launched the registry in 2020 to gather data specific to all patients hospitalized with COVID-19 as part of the Get With The Guidelines® quality improvement program. Registry participation was offered at no cost to all U.S. hospitals caring for adults with active COVID-19 and with the infrastructure to support accurate data collection. More than 160 hospitals provided data on more than 79,000 patient records between 2020 and June 2022.Source:

NewMediaWire

002