Smoking increases your risk of severe COVID-19

Embargoed until: Publicly released:
Peer-reviewed: This work was reviewed and scrutinised by relevant independent experts.

Observational study: A study in which the subject is observed to see if there is a relationship between two or more things (eg: the consumption of diet drinks and obesity). Observational studies cannot prove that one thing causes another, only that they are linked.

People: This is a study based on research using people.

The more packets of cigarettes you smoke over your lifetime, the higher your risk may be of being hospitalised or dying from COVID-19, according to US research. Previously evidence to link smoking to COVID-19 risk had been limited and often contradictory but this study found that the cumulative exposure to cigarette smoke was an independent risk factor for hospital admission and death from COVID-19. 

Journal/conference: JAMA Internal Medicine

Link to research (DOI): 10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.8360

Organisation/s: Cleveland Clinic, USA

Funder: Research support was provided through a grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (K08HL133381).

Media release

From: JAMA

Association of Smoking With COVID-19 Outcomes

JAMA Internal Medicine
Research Letter

Association of Smoking and Cumulative Pack-Year Exposure With COVID-19 Outcomes in the Cleveland Clinic COVID-19 Registry

What The Study Did: The results of this study suggest that cumulative exposure to cigarette smoke is an independent risk factor for hospital admission and death from COVID-19.

Authors: Katherine E. Lowe, M.Sc., of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, is the corresponding author.

(doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.8360)

Editor’s Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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