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Another French Study Looks Into The Use of Nicotine Against Covid-19

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Re: Another French Study Looks Into The Use of Nicotine Against Covid-19

#11

Post by reilly3000 »

There are oral nicotine products that are widely available. You can get smoking cessation lozenges at drug stores, but there are also nicotine pouches sold alongside cigarettes and snus. Some use tobacco nicotine, but many are derived from nightshade vegetables such as tomatoes. If you were considering adding nicotine into your life, this would probably be the safest choice for the throat and lungs. Receding gums and nicotine addiction are very likely consequences as well as risk to the cardiovascular system; proceed with caution.

As a Covid-19 therapy oral nicotine would be easy to scale up and distribute. It doesn't take long to turn around a crop of eggplant or tomatoes, and the processing seems simple enough. Effective dosing, safety and the political difficulties of advocating for safe and limited use nicotine seem to be something that would make any public health professional's head spin.

Re: Another French Study Looks Into The Use of Nicotine Against Covid-19

#13

Post by function_seven »

bird_monster wrote: post #3

> The study in question will be randomized, national and multi-center, carried out double-blind, and should involve teams from Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris, Sorbonne University and Inserm. It is expected to include approximately 1,633 medical and non-medical caregivers, working in a health establishment, non-smokers (or former smokers who have quit smoking for more than 12 months), without a history of inf…

Another interesting thing to find out: Is it just nicotine that has an effect? Or nicotine delivered via the respiratory system?

The nicotine patch trial will hopefully shed light on that as well.

In the meantime, it would be nice to see data comparing the hospitalization rates of smokeless tobacco users* vs. smokers and non-tobacco users.

* i.e. Chew, dip, and snus.

Re: Another French Study Looks Into The Use of Nicotine Against Covid-19

#14

Post by carlmr »

colechristensen wrote: post #7
bird_monster wrote: post #3

> The study in question will be randomized, national and multi-center, carried out double-blind, and should involve teams from Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris, Sorbonne University and Inserm. It is expected to include approximately 1,633 medical and non-medical caregivers, working in a health establishment, non-smokers (or former smokers who have quit smoking for more than 12 months), without a history of inf…

A quick literature search shows ample evidence of both immune suppressing and immune promoting effects of nicotine. I didn’t see something that was a clear consensus, but it seemed like nicotine decidedly modulates the immune system. It seems whatever effects it has might do good things for covid. Nicotine isn’t evil, and even not particularly addictive when not delivered via burning leaves. (components in smoke chan…

I've been wondering about this anyway. Isn't the covid that requires hospitalization due to an overreaction of the immune system? Maybe suppressing the immune system slightly is what helps here.

Re: Another French Study Looks Into The Use of Nicotine Against Covid-19

#15

Post by throwaway201103 »

bird_monster wrote: post #3

> The study in question will be randomized, national and multi-center, carried out double-blind, and should involve teams from Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris, Sorbonne University and Inserm. It is expected to include approximately 1,633 medical and non-medical caregivers, working in a health establishment, non-smokers (or former smokers who have quit smoking for more than 12 months), without a history of inf…

> > The researchers will administer nicotine patches to some of the participants for a period of 4 to 5 months, and then carry out a follow-up for 6 to 7 months.

By that time, I'd expect widespread vaccinations particularly among older and at-risk people. Is this going to be anything more than a curiosity at that time? Maybe something to keep on the shelf for the next pandemic? Or a hedge in case the vaccine immunity is short-lived?

Re: Another French Study Looks Into The Use of Nicotine Against Covid-19

#16

Post by boomboomsubban »

Pure guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if fewer smokers went to the hospital for minor cases. Most of the common symptoms for the illness are things smokers regularly deal with like a loss of taste and smell, congestion, coughing, and breathing difficulties. So unless things are pretty bad, being sick might seem better than getting hospitalized and going through withdrawal.

I hope whatever wide scale antibody test they do ask if the person smokes as well.

Re: Another French Study Looks Into The Use of Nicotine Against Covid-19

#18

Post by sgtnoodle »

Lol, I've been saying this since July. Severe covid is due to organ inflammation from overaggressive immune system response, and nicotine is an immune system suppressant. The one episode of Dr. House where is was actually sarcoidosis (a systemic inflammatory disease), the patient didn't have any symptoms because of his use of chewing tobacco to manage his weight for wrestling.

Re: Another French Study Looks Into The Use of Nicotine Against Covid-19

#19

Post by f2000 »

colechristensen wrote: post #7
bird_monster wrote: post #3

> The study in question will be randomized, national and multi-center, carried out double-blind, and should involve teams from Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris, Sorbonne University and Inserm. It is expected to include approximately 1,633 medical and non-medical caregivers, working in a health establishment, non-smokers (or former smokers who have quit smoking for more than 12 months), without a history of inf…

A quick literature search shows ample evidence of both immune suppressing and immune promoting effects of nicotine. I didn’t see something that was a clear consensus, but it seemed like nicotine decidedly modulates the immune system. It seems whatever effects it has might do good things for covid. Nicotine isn’t evil, and even not particularly addictive when not delivered via burning leaves. (components in smoke chan…

"even not particularly addictive when not delivered via burning leaves"

My personal experience is that it is even more addictive. First, with NRT (gum, lozenge) you can use nicotine much more frequently - e.g. even going to bed with lozenge in your mouth. Second, you can easily increase your dosage. 2mg piece of gum not doing it for you? Pop in a few more or move up to 4mg. Switch to mini-lozenge and you can suck on say 5 * 4mg lozenges at one time.

Re: Another French Study Looks Into The Use of Nicotine Against Covid-19

#20

Post by adw »

sgtnoodle wrote: post #18

Lol, I've been saying this since July. Severe covid is due to organ inflammation from overaggressive immune system response, and nicotine is an immune system suppressant. The one episode of Dr. House where is was actually sarcoidosis (a systemic inflammatory disease), the patient didn't have any symptoms because of his use of chewing tobacco to manage his weight for wrestling.

You'd probably be interested in

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanrhe/article/PIIS2665-9...

This paper points out that patients on infliximab (trade name Remicade: immune system modulator used by people with chronic autoimmune diseases, particularly IBD and rheumatoid arthritis) don't seem to be at elevated risk of severe COVID – which is surprising because these are powerful immune system suppressants.

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