Heated tobacco products do not burn the tobacco leaves, but instead allow the user to inhale the vapors produced by the heated tobacco leaves.
Posted Date – Friday, 3/24/23 at 12:35pm
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Tokyo: Using heated tobacco products – an alternative to traditional cigarettes, similar to e-cigarettes or vaping – is more likely to make you more likely to contract the Covid-19 virus and require hospitalization or oxygen, according to a study.
“This study suggests that the use of heated tobacco products may have an impact on SARS-CoV-2 infection and disease progression,” said Kazuhisa Asai, an associate professor at Osaka City University in Japan.
“We hope this report will encourage people to consider tobacco use in the context of the increased risk of coronavirus infection,” Asai added.
Heated tobacco products do not burn the tobacco leaves, but instead allow the user to inhale the vapors produced by the heated tobacco leaves.
People choose heated tobacco products to avoid the smoke and smell of burning tobacco, and because they want them to pose fewer health risks than traditional cigarettes.
However, the long-term health effects of heated tobacco products, especially the new risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2, have not yet been elucidated.
To address this question, a research team led by Asai conducted a study focusing on the relationship between heated tobacco product use and SARS-CoV-2 infection.
The research team investigated the relationship between tobacco use (both heated tobacco products and traditional cigarettes) and SARS-CoV-2 infection and possible worsening of Covid.
They conducted an online survey among 30,130 participants, aged 16-81, randomly selected from the general population according to a representative distribution via an online survey in February 2022, and further statistically analyze.
Based on their analysis published in Scientific Reports, the team found that users of heated tobacco products — including those who use them exclusively or in combination with conventional cigarettes — were at a higher rate of infection with COVID-19 compared with non-users much higher.
Furthermore, among all tobacco users, those who used both heated tobacco products and traditional cigarettes had an incidence of severe illness – requiring hospitalization or oxygen due to Covid-19.
