(Reuters) – E-cigarette users infected with the coronavirus may be more likely than infected non-vapers to experience COVID-19 symptoms, according to research published in the Journal of Primary Care & Community Health.
The researchers compared 289 vapers with 1,445 people of similar age and gender who neither vaped nor smoked tobacco, all of whom had tested positive for the coronavirus on PCR tests.
Compared to infected non-vapers and after accounting for participants’ other risk factors, infected vapers experienced higher rates of chest pain or tightness (16% versus 10%), chills (25% versus 19%), body aches (39% versus 32%), headaches (49% versus 41%), problems with smell and taste (37% versus 30%), nausea/vomiting/abdominal pain (16% versus 10%), diarrhea (16% versus 10%) and light-headedness (16% versus 9%).
“Our research was not designed to test whether e-cigarette use increases the risk of acquiring COVID infection, but it clearly indicates that symptom burden in patients with COVID-19 who vape is greater than in those who do not vape,” study co-author Dr. Robert Vassallo of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said in a news release.
The inflammation caused by the coronavirus and the inflammation induced by vaping may combine to worsen the likelihood of inflammation throughout the body, with a resulting increase in symptoms, Vassallo and his colleagues suggested.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/3GtQZsc Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, online January 5, 2022.
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