Do cigars really help with asthma?

On social networks you can often find claims that smoking cigars helps with asthma. Most often this is accompanied by references to famous smokers - Che Guevara or US President Theodore Roosevelt. We decided to check if this is true.

The main source of stories about the benefits of cigars for asthmatics are numerous biographies of the Cuban revolutionary Ernesto (Che) Guevara. He suffered from asthma since childhood, and, according to his stories, in a severe form - severe attacks almost ruined Che Guevara landing in Cuba in 1956. Often he attributed to claim that cigars helped him cope with attacks. And it is logical that such stories can be found everywhere on websitesdedicated to cigars.

First of all, it is worth paying attention to the fact that Che Guevara himself, obviously, did not consider cigars to be his only cure for asthma. In Che Guevara’s autobiographical notes about partisan actions in Cuba, “Episodes of the Revolutionary War,” there is a lot wrote about the attacks that tormented him and complained about the lack of medicine: “In those days, my asthma made itself felt. Due to lack of medicine, she again confined me to bed. I alleviated my painful suffering by smoking hand-rolled papers made from dry sweet pea leaves.” He also explained, why I started smoking cigars: “Together with everyone else, I enjoyed for the first time in my life cigars, which I learned to smoke to ward off annoying mosquitoes.”

There are many studies on the dangers of cigars as a special case of nicotine consumption. For example, in 1998, this issue was devoted conference American Cancer Society. Other scientists compared content carboxyhemoglobin (compounds of hemoglobin with carbon monoxide) in consumers of regular cigarettes and in smokers of cigars and pipes and found that this figure is on average five times higher than in non-smokers. Many works have been published in general about the dangers of various types of smoking: regular smoking cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, combinations cigars and pipes. But until recently there was no separate study on the effect of cigars on the body of a person suffering from asthma. So far there is only one such work, but its general provisions coincide with earlier studies on the dangers of cigars for the body.

In 2016, a group of specialists from Greece published study about the effect of cigars on asthma. The experiment involved 47 young (18–31 years old) smoking men. 22 participants had asthma, the rest did not experience any health problems. The scientists measured several parameters, including exhaled carbon monoxide and respiratory system resistance. The authors of the experiment note that smoke from cigarettes and cigars is inhaled differently: in the first case, deeply, in the second, not. Another article was devoted to cigarettes and the harm they pose to asthmatics. study, published in 2010. Its authors found that deep inhalation of cigarette smoke is more harmful for asthma sufferers than for others.

As a result of a study of cigar smoking, Greek experts came to several conclusions. Firstly, both groups (asthmatics and healthy smokers) showed equally high levels of toxic carboxyhemoglobin after half an hour of smoking a cigar. That is, in this case, scientists began with the obvious conclusion: smoking cigars is equally harmful to both asthmatics and smokers without asthma. Secondly, when comparing respiratory resistance indicators, it turned out that there is still a difference: cigar smoking affects the peripheral airways in asthmatics, while in healthy participants the dysfunction is localized mainly in the central airways.

According to scientists, smoking cigars is more dangerous for asthmatics than for others: due to the heterogeneity of lung ventilation, pathological changes are more difficult to identify. But in all cases, without exception, the respiratory system reacted acutely to cigar smoking, albeit in different ways. Thus, Greek scientists came to two key conclusions. First, smoking cigars is no healthier than smoking cigarettes; secondly, no separate benefit has been identified for asthmatics.

Cover image: Still from the film “Topaz”, 1969

Not true

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