ArticleImmunology letters2020
How nicotine can inhibit cytokine storm in the lungs and prevent or lessen the severity of COVID-19 infection?
Article in Immunology letters, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 44 citations in OpenAlex.
- Association between e-cigarette use and COVID-19 diagnosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Association between vagus nerve cross-sectional area measured by ultrasound and inflammatory biomarkers in hospitalised patients with COVID-19.Journal of medical biochemistry · 2026Article
- Candidate treatments for long COVID: a narrative review of expert and patient-driven priorities.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Review
- COVID-19 Disease and Chronic Health Outcomes Associated with Nicotine Use in a Great Plains Tribal Community: A Community-Based Study.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2025Article
- Nicotine is an Immunosuppressant: Implications for Women's Health and Disease.Journal of neuroimmunology · 2024Review
- E-cigarette Use and Severe Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis.Cureus · 2024Review
- Immunological Signatures in Blood and Urine in 80 Individuals Hospitalized during the Initial Phase of COVID-19 Pandemic with Quantified Nicotine Exposure.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- α7- and α9-Containing Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors in the Functioning of Immune System and in Pain.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Cholinergic dysfunction in COVID-19: frantic search and hoping for the best.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2023Review
- Determination of soluble angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 in saliva samples and its association with nicotine.Environmental research · 2023Article
- An experimental test of the nicotinic hypothesis of COVID-19.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Old drugs, new tricks: leveraging known compounds to disrupt coronavirus-induced cytokine storm.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2022Article
- Medicinal nicotine in COVID-19 acute respiratory distress syndrome, the new corticosteroid.World journal of critical care medicine · 2022Review
- Inflammatory reflex disruption in COVID-19.Clinical & experimental neuroimmunology · 2022Review
- Virus interactions with the actin cytoskeleton-what we know and do not know about SARS-CoV-2.Archives of virology · 2022Review
- Article
- Nicotine in Inflammatory Diseases: Anti-Inflammatory and Pro-Inflammatory Effects.Frontiers in immunology · 2022Review
- Perceived Susceptibility to and Seriousness of COVID-19: Associations of Risk Perceptions with Changes in Smoking Behavior.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Reduced Mortality With Ondansetron Use in SARS-CoV-2-Infected Inpatients.Open forum infectious diseases · 2021Article
- COVID-19, smoking, vaping and quitting: a representative population survey in England.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Statistical surveys of COVID-19 patients indicate, against all common logic, that people who smoke are less prone to the infection and/or exhibit less severe respiratory symptoms than non-smokers. This suggests that nicotine may have some preventive or modulatory effect on the inflammatory response in the lungs. Because it is known that the response to, and resolution of the SARS-CoV-2 infection depends mainly on the lung macrophages, we discuss the recent scientific findings, which may explain why and how nicotine may modulate lung macrophage response during COVID-19 infection.
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Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.