Smoking makes you prone to tuberculosis by incapacitating the macrophages in lung, but the incapacitation reversible

Research published by Russell D. Berg et al [1 ] in March this year in the journal Cell show that smoking causes the accumulation of tobacco smoke particulates in the immune cells called as macrophages, which are the cells that respond to any foreign agent (e.g. Bacteria, virus etc.) and engulf it. For doing this they need to migrate to the bacteria to engulf it. The organs of the body have their own macrophages that live there to counter any infection, the ones that live in the lung are called resident alveolar macrophages.

Accumulation of particulates from tobacco inside these cells into a cellular compartment called as lysosome, impairs their movement to where the bacteria is. This can result in a delay giving a chance to the bacteria to and increase in number (and hence cause the disease by sheer increase in numbers).

The authors also say that this proneness of getting TB may be reversible. In an experiment where a smoker’s lung was transplanted into a non-smoker, these incapacitated macrophages decreased in number from >90% to 3% in 3 years [ 2].

Cessation of smoking will not only allow your lung to heal but also make you less prone to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis.