El humo de los cigarrillos suprime la respuesta inmune y favorece las infecciones, enfermedades pulmonares y el cáncer.

Nat Rev Immunol. 2009 Mar 30. [Epub ahead of print]Click here to read Links
How cigarette smoke skews immune responses to promote infection, lung disease and cancer.
Stämpfli MR, Anderson GP.

Martin R. Stämpfli is at the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, Centre for Gene Therapeutics, and the Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

A complex and multilayered immune defence system protects the host against harmful agents and maintains tissue homeostasis. Cigarette smoke ex posure markedly impacts the immune system, compromising the host's ability to mount appropriate immune and inflammatory responses and contributing to smoking-related pathologies. These adverse effects on the immune system not only occur in active smokers, but also in those exposed to smoke passively in contaminated environments, and may persist for decades after exposure has ended.