Smokers are ruined by their own immune system

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

It is a well-known fact that smokers have problems with the immune system. In particular, cigarette users are more at risk of dying during influenza epidemics than non-smokers and are more vulnerable to chronic lung disease. But, as scientists from Yale University have found, the problem is not a weakened immune system, but rather a hypertrophied immune response.

The prevailing view is that smoking lowers the antiviral responses of the immune system. However, a team of researchers led by Jack Elias discovered that the opposite is actually true.

Experiments from Yale scientists showed that the immune systems of mice, which were exposed to tobacco smoke equivalent to two cigarettes a day, overreacted to viruses like the influenza virus. The immune system of "smoking" mice normally coped with the virus, but too much inflammation led to tissue damage, RIA Novosti reports.

According to the head of the researchers, the immune system of smokers "uses a blacksmith's hammer to kill the fly." The researchers also found that smoking mice developed several other lung diseases faster.

“This finding means that smokers are not experiencing problems because their bodies cannot cope with the virus, but because the immune system is overreacting to them,” explained Dr. Elias.

Smokers should think about more than this. Not so long ago, scientists have established that nicotine addiction is caused by genetics. A smoker who received such an “inheritance” as a gift from his parents is 80% more susceptible to lung cancer than a smoker whose parents led a healthy lifestyle. At the same time, hereditary nicotine lovers smoke on average two cigarettes a day more and it is more difficult for them to give up their addiction. Heredity is believed to affect the health of even healthy and non-smokers under certain circumstances.