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Comment by snikeris | Hacker News Reader

Interesting, they hypothesize that nicotine is responsible:

> There are however, sufficient scientific data to suggest that smoking protection is likely to be mediated by nicotine. SARS-CoV2 is known to use the angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor for cell entry[14-16], and there is evidence that nicotine modulates ACE2 expression[17]which could in turn modulate the nicotinic acetyl choline receptor (manuscript submitted).

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Nicotine (smoking) has been known to act as an immunomodulator and can act as a preventative for gastrointestinal inflammatory disease such as ulcerative colitis. This could be attenuating the inflammatory response and reducing symptoms for COVID-19 patients.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/516104_4

The additives in cigarettes have been shown to dilate lung airways, suppress coughing, and disguise symptoms of illness:

https://www.verywellmind.com/cigarette-additives-2824737

Perhaps the additives are keeping COVID-19 patients alive by supporting breathing in difficult circumstances? There are hundreds of additives so figuring out if any of them help would be difficult:

https://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/emerging/d...

So start taking nicotine lozenges as a prophylactic?

Would orally ingested nicotine protect lungs the same way that inhaled nicotine does?

Its far to premature to even conclude that inhaled nicotine protects the lungs. This is just one study. Don't do anything stupid, like go develop a nicotine addiction, just because of one headline.

Obviously I would never think of suggesting that people start smoking tobacco. My comment was meant to discourage people from leaping to conclusions and getting addicted to nicotine lozenges when, as far as I know, there is little that suggests they'd be beneficial.

This might be a joke, but I'm "addicted" to nicotine gum (and don't otherwise smoke). I probably caught the virus early on, and it wasn't particularly bad for me (even compared to typical flu).

That's not even really a single data point, but I'm curious to see how this pans out.

> I probably caught the virus early on, and it wasn't particularly bad for me (even compared to typical flu).

Do you have reason to believe that, or were you sick in January/February and just kind of assume that was it, even though we were at the height of regular cold and flu season?

Just circumstantial. I was knocked down with something I self-diagnosed as "walking pneumonia", which turned out to be the thing a lot of these cases were diagnosed as before the virus was widely known. Several days after a flight. Main symptom was lots of coughing and some fever. Felt better after 7-10 days, but coughed frequently for several more weeks. Not really the aches of flu, nor any nasal/sinus symptoms--just totally wiped out.

Until we have antibody tests, no way to know. And I'm locked down hard--not assuming anything.

Not in medical field, but nicotine is generally biotoxic and used as a pesticide so i'm not at all surprised. Detriments to any symbiotic microorganisms aside, regularly spraying the lungs and other airways with a light coating of biotoxic film seems a good way to generally inhibit replication or damage any negative bioparticles, so long as the damage doesn't overwhelmingly interfere with the smoker's own biological functions and weaken the overall system ...

Being toxic to an insect or human doesn't mean it will have any effect on a virus.

IIRC the reason nicotine is poisonous to humans is because it binds to receptors involved in nerve function, which in turn are required to control muscles.

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