I’m thinking that perhaps the smoke would carry the virus further, while also keeping it airborne for a longer period of time.
Former smoker checking in. I quit smoking 2 1/2 years ago after 20 years smoking one pack a day at least. Pretty much every year I would get one or two colds that would be really nasty and hard to get over. In the last two years I haven’t had any serious respiratory illness at all. Maybe I will wake up some days with a little congestion but as long as I take it easy it goes away by the next day. Seasonal allergies also are less bothersome.
I absolutely feel I have enjoyed better health since I quit smoking. And my friends who have continued to smoke tend to be sick just as often as I used to be. I have also been around them and been exposed to their exhaled smoke enough that I would imagine any germs or viruses have had their chance to make me ill.
Further than other particulates or chemicals that we all inhale on a regular basis? Yes, exhaled smoke may contain more concentrated chemicals but I wonder if you are thinking about this because you can actually see smoke as opposed to everything else we exhale.
Which is why I am asking the question. Does exhaled tobacco smoke carry our viruses? If so does it create a hazard that wasn’t already there?
Why would you think this? Smoke is heavier than water vapour, what reason is there to think it will travel further or longer?
I am not giving a conclusion-I am asking a question and hoping for something more than anecdotes about how poor people feel when they have a cold while smoking. Does anyone have any answers to my questions?
One of your posts said you couldn’t believe that no-one had researched this. My immediate thought was that it’s obvious smoke wouldn’t travel as far as water vapour because it’s heavier. This may be wrong, but if it is true, and as obvious as I think it is, it would explain why.
On the other hand, when cigarette smoke is exhaled, it travels up and out, which might give it more distance. All of this is moot, however, until we find out if cigarette smoke carries viruses in the first place.
This is a complexquestion than it may seem because of the biological complexity of human respiratory pathogens. Some viruses have envelopes while others are effectively covered in simple protein coats. Incidentally, viruses are neither live nor dead and so the idea that theyneed certain heat conditions to survive is a misunderstanding of the biology. Some pathogens are especially hardy and persist in deep thermal vents while others cannot exist outside of human cells.
Frankly I think this question should be framed differently: do smoke particles enhance the infectivity of common respiratory pathogens? My answer- yes. I hypothesize this to be true because of the known immunomodulatory effects of second hand tobacco smoke eg. it limits the clearing of particles by damaging cilia and restricts vascular access to the tiny alveolar tissues on which the particles land. This question is academic in nature because short of quitting smoking or avoiding second hand smoke, there is little one can do to mitigate the infectious disease consequences for respiratory pathogens
It is, in fact, quite possible that no one has ever researched the question. Just from my general science knowledge, I believe that viruses are light enough that molecular motion of air is sufficient to keep them from ever settling out, anyway, so hitching on a smoke particle is going to make no difference. However, I’ve never seen anything on the subject of viruses and smoke, so I’m just guessing, and that’s the best I can do. Sorry.
Is it even possible for smoke particles to carry things like viruses and bacteria? Tiny water droplets could carry something inside them, and general air currents can keep tiny particles suspended in them as they swirl around, but is there a mechanism for bacteria or viruses to attach to the surface of a smoke particle? Are those particles electrically charged in a way that might cause pathogens to cling to them?
Sorry, Czarcasm, I’m adding more questions rather than giving answers…
One the smoke companies never thought to market it , if it were true that it exhibited any possible health bennifit, conversely the anti smokers never touted it as a new evil , vectoring virii your way via second hand smoke.
With the non smokers in the acendant at the moment, they might have concidered it moot at this point, if it did carry a virus rider.
Declan
Isn’t that true of bacteria as well, which are unambiguously alive? It doesn’t mean that it isn’t useful to speak of heat “killing” a virus, does it? I mean, just looking at an HIV particle, if it gets subjected to heat high enough to denature its 20+ proteins or disrupt the lipid bilayer that surrounds it, it isn’t going to be infectious anymore, so it seems logical to speak of it having been “killed.”
When I was in the Navy, before going on shore leave, we’d all pass in front of the ship’s radar so that we’d be temporarily sterilized and not leave any kids from our visits. Then we found out, the amount of RF radiation it takes to sterilize you would be enough to kill you.
130° water will scald you. Yet Dept of Health regulations require that dishwashers use temperatures in excess of 160° for FIVE minutes to ensure most sterilization of eating utensils. Same for cooking meat.
So I doubt that you’re inhaling that much temperature into your lungs, let alone exhaling out of them to spread sickness. Then again, airborne illnesses don’t require smoke to ride on. They’re already satisfied with riding the air.
The first part is an interesting question but why limit it to tobacco smoke? Why not simply “smoke”. Is there something inherently different in the particulate make-up of tobacco smoke that would make it a better transport mechanism for viruses?
As for the second part, I would surmise that even if it did produce a wider infectious envelope about the smoker, the health risks would fall below the risks associated with exposure to the particulates in the smoke.
Not sure where the The Lazarus Pit is, but if you stand outside on a cold January morning in the upper Midwest you will see that even a non-smokers exhalations travel up and out.
And a final thought. How does the virus get onto the smoke particle. I can’t say I am very knowledgeable about viral transmission, but I don’t believe there are just a bunch of free floating viruses in the airway to attach to smoke. Aren’t most viral bodies in the mucosal lininging and set free by expectoration of the mucus?
Chorpler, I want to commend you on your point. You can indeed refer to something that was never alive being killed eg formalin killed virus. My issue was with the syntax and I was hoping to differentiate viruses that are not living matter from things that are. And as a point of fact, you can heat denature some viruses and put them into cells and get viruses back out. I realize this is esoteric but my passions lie in a certain type of virus for which this is true (positive strand RNA viruses like Dengue who are able to replicate from nothing but their RNA). This is in contrast to unambiguously alive things for whom there is a distinct “alive” phase.
If we get past my little rant, I think it would be worth considering the temperAture changes associated with smoking. Surely the tobacco and paper are burning at a high temperature that would sterilize all but the hardiest bacterial spores, but that isn’t the reservoir for respiratory pathogens, is it? The real source of respiratory pathogens is the tissues of the upper respiratory tract. The smoke cools substantially as it Passes through this area to the point that I doubt it would preclude the survival of bacteria and viruses. So I don’t fully understand the argument that heat alone would prevent disease from being transmitted by secondhand smoke.