Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/JLsBNvMhS5s   Exposure to tobacco smoke activates genes in lung and to a lesser extent nasal lining cells that permit CoVid to bind, enter, and damage these vital tissues.  The details have now been reported by a collaborative group at Boston and Brown Universities.   Gene analysis of 796 nasal and 1673 bronchial cell samples shows that smoking strongly turns on production of the ACE2 CoVid binding proteins in lung tissue and less so in nasal tissues.  Production of the TMPRSS2 enzyme that allows CoVid to enter a cell was similarly boosted in smokers’ lung tissues but not in their nasal tissues.   Smoking turns on genes that help welcome a devastating virus like CoVid.   https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.30.21254564v1.full.pdf+html   #CoVid #tobacco #smoking #ace2 #tmprss2