Cigarette Smoking and Hemagglutination Inhibition Response to Influenza after Natural Disease and Immunization¹

Colorectal cancer occurs earlier in those exposed to tobacco smoke: implications for screening

“…Animal studies have demonstrated that exposure to tobacco smoke impairs local and systemic immunity (Thomas et al 1973), depresses primary and secondary immune function , and that transplanted tumor cells grow better in mice chronically exposed to tobacco smoke . A study on humans found that current smokers have significantly lower residual antibody levels following influenza vaccination than never smokers, supporting this hypothesis of immune impairment from smoking (Finklea et al 1971). …”

The effect of cigarette smoking on susceptibility to epidemic influenza and on serological responses to live attenuated and killed subunit influenza vaccines

“…Humoral haemagglutination-inhibiting (HI) antibody titres to influenza were significantly increased among smokers who remained well and minimally increased among smokers who were sick, compared with those of non-smokers, but the persistence of their HI antibody after vaccination was significantly decreased. There was no significant difference, however, between smokers and non-smokers in their immunological response to vaccination with killed influenza vaccine (Finklea et al 1971 b).…”

“…No such effect was observed among smokers who had received the live virus vaccine, or among smokers with residual immunity who had received the subunit vaccine. The longevity of the immune response among smokers to a killed vaccine was also shown to be depressed 1 year after vaccination by Finklea and colleagues (Finklea et al 1971 b), but they did not attempt a correlation with residual pre-vaccination immunity. They further reported that pre-vaccination geometric mean HI titres were lower for smokers than non-smokers, but their finding could not be confirmed in this study (Table 2).…”

“…An increased susceptibility to epidemic influenza and other respiratory infections has been observed among young adult cigarette smokers when compared with non-smokers (Finklea, Sandifer & Smith, 1969;Finklea et al 1971 a; Haynes, Krstulovic & Bell, 1966;Parnell, Anderson & Kinnis, 1966). Humoral haemagglutination-inhibiting (HI) antibody titres to influenza were significantly increased among smokers who remained well and minimally increased among smokers who were sick, compared with those of non-smokers, but the persistence of their HI antibody after vaccination was significantly decreased.…”

Antibody response to vaccination and psychosocial stress in humans: relationships and mechanisms

“…In addition, high levels of alcohol consumption have been linked to reduced vaccine efficacy [61] and alcoholics have been shown to have poorer responses to some serotypes of the pneumococcal vaccine than non-alcoholic controls [62]. Similarly, cigarette smoking has been linked to reduced response to influenza [63,64], and hepatitis B vaccinations [65][66][67]. It has also been suggested that nutritional status may influence vaccine efficacy; supplementation with zinc, selenium [68], and vitamin E [69] improved the response to influenza vaccination in institutionalised elderly participants.…”