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If you’re a smoker, take heed. You can catch the flu more easily than non-smokers ⁽¹⁾. Smoking also weakens your body’s ability to fight off the flu ⁽¹⁾. Here’s why.

Smoking and your lungs

Each time you puff on a cigarette, the tobacco smoke you inhale contains a mix of more than 7,000 chemicals ⁽²⁾. When you breathe these in, they hit your lungs very quickly. They can damage your lungs and cause conditions like Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) ⁽¹⁾.

After breathing in these chemicals, your blood then carries them to the rest of your body ⁽²⁾. Take, for instance, the carbon monoxide in tobacco smoke ⁽²⁾. This poisonous gas ⁽³⁾ displaces the oxygen in your blood, depriving your organs of the oxygen they need ⁽²⁾.

Smoking and your immune system

Those 7,000 chemical compounds in tobacco smoke can also interfere with your immune system ⁽⁴⁾. And when smoking harms your immune system, it can make your body less successful at fighting disease ⁽⁴⁾.

Your body is less able to protect itself from diseases and infections⁽⁴⁾. Everything from cold and flu viruses to arthritis and cancer will find it easier to progress when your immune system is not working effectively ⁽²⁾.

At greater risk of catching the flu

There’s also a link between smoking cigarettes and a higher risk of catching the flu. One study found smokers had a 60% risk of catching the flu when non-smokers’ risk was only just over 40% ⁽⁵⁾. Another found just over 30% of flu cases to be attributable to smoking ⁽⁵⁾. And a third study found smokers could be as much as five times more likely to develop the flu ⁽⁶⁾.

What’s more, the first study also found that smokers are also more susceptible to catching the flu again. Why? Because their antibodies wane more rapidly ⁽⁵⁾.

At greater risk from the flu

Flu infections can be more severe for smokers ⁽⁵⁾. Smokers produce more phlegm, cough more and experience more breathlessness and wheezing than non-smokers ⁽⁵⁾. And if you have a condition like COPD, catching the flu can make it much worse ⁽¹⁾.

Research has also shown that smokers are more likely to suffer complications with the flu. One study showed a marked 44% increase in complications for smokers compared with non-smokers ⁽⁵⁾. Compared with people who have never smoked, smokers could be 1.5 times more likely to be admitted to the hospital after catching the flu ⁽⁷⁾. Worse still, they could be 2.2 times more likely to be admitted to intensive care ⁽⁷⁾.

So why does this happen? In addition to weakening the body’s ability to fight off the flu ⁽¹⁾, researchers believe smokers’ immune systems may overreact to the flu virus ⁽⁸⁾. They found that exposing immune systems to tobacco smoke not only makes them defective but also hyperactive ⁽⁸⁾.

Protect yourself from the flu. Get a flu vaccine. You need that protection. Why? Because you’re more at risk of catching the flu and of severe illness with the flu ⁽¹⁾.

Sources
(1) https://www.health.ny.gov/publications/2461.pdf
(2) https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/health-information/keep-your-air-clear-how-tobacco-can-harm-your-lungs
(3) https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/carbon-monoxide-poisoning/
(4) https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/50th-anniversary/pdfs/fs_smoking_overall_health_508.pdf
(5) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/217624
(6) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31465780/
(7) https://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/2019/05000/ Smoking_and_Influenza_associated_Morbidity_and.15.aspx
(8) https://news.yale.edu/2008/07/24/study-shows-why-cigarette-smoke-makes-flu-other-viral-infections-worse