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Health News of Tuesday, 14 April 2020

Source: www.mynigeria.com

Smoking worsens your chance of survival if you have COVID-19, Experts say

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Health experts have portended that smoking weed could increase the risk of COVID-19.

This study was fronted by pulmonologist Dr Albert Rizzo, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association who said smokers are liable to have inflammation from smoking.

"What happens to your airways when you smoke cannabis is that it causes some degree of inflammation, very similar to bronchitis, very similar to the type of inflammation that cigarette smoking can cause," he said.

"Now you have some airway inflammation and you get an infection on top of it. So, yes, your chance of getting more complications is there," Rizzo added

Another doctor, Dr Mitchell Glass, a pulmonologist and spokesperson for the American Lung Association said smoking could make it difficult for COVID-19 symptoms to be diagnosed.

"COVID-19 is a pulmonary disease," Glass said. "Do you really want to have a confounding variable if you need to see a doctor or a healthcare worker by saying, 'Oh, and by the way, I'm not a regular user of cannabis, but I decided to use cannabis to calm myself down.'

"You don't want to do anything that's going to confound the ability of healthcare workers to make a rapid, accurate assessment of what's going on with you," he added.

Smokers, people with COPD and other chronic lung diseases, as well as people with moderate to severe asthma are among those at high risk for severe illness from COVID-19, including the worst-case scenario of being placed on a ventilator in order to continue breathing, the doctor explained.

Another thing smoking does is to cause anxiety and mess your ability to function.

"There's another factor as well. As we all know, weed not only calms you down, but it messes with your ability to function -- and that does you no favours if you find yourself having a medical emergency during a pandemic.

"You're reducing anxiety, but that is still a change in your thinking, a change in the way you are handling facts, how you're grasping situations," Glass said.

The best advice comes from Rizzo who begs individuals not to even start smoking.

"It's common sense that anything you inhale that has been combusted and contains particles or chemicals can inflame your airways," he said. "So you're already making your body fight off foreign particles before it even has to fight off the infection," Rizzo advised.