Revisiting the Paradox of Smoking: Radioactivity in Tobacco Smoke or Suppressing the SARS-CoV-2 Receptor, Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2, via Aryl-Hydrocarbon Receptor Signal?

Abstract

Despite current controversies, some reports show a paradoxical mitigating effect associated with smoking in individuals with symptomatic COVID-19 compared to the general population. To explain the potential mechanisms behind the lower number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, it has been hypothesized that cigarette smoking may reduce the odds of cytokine storm and related severe inflammatory responses through cholinergic-mediated anti-inflammatory mechanisms. Japanese scientists have recently identified a potential mechanism behind the lower numbers of COVID-19 cases amongst smokers compared to non-smokers. However, we believe that this mitigative effect may be due to the relatively high concentration of deposited energy of alpha particles emitted from naturally occurring radionuclides such as Po-210 in cigarette tobacco. Regarding COVID-19, other researchers and our team have previously addressed the anti-inflammatory and immune-modulating effects of low doses of ionizing radiation. MC-simulation using the Geant4 Monte Carlo toolkit shows that the radiation dose absorbed in a spherical cell with a radius of .9 μm for a single 5.5 MeV alpha particle is about 5.1 Gy. This energy deposition may trigger both anti-inflammatory and anti-thrombotic effects which paradoxically lower the risk of hospitalization due to COVID-19 in smokers.

Time Reveals the Truth! What Treatments for COVID-19 Were Quickly Abandoned, and Which Methods, Contrary to Popular Belief, Are Still Flourishing?

“…Since the early days of the pandemic, our team was actively involved in studies on COVID-19 [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Table 1 summarizes some of the citations from our 1st paper published on April 2020, to clarify the impact of our contribution to global COVID-19 management.…”