The Strange Story of Nicotine Patches to Treat Long COVID | Office for Science and Society - McGill University
Offline
Error loading page resources
Please try to reload the page to display it correctly. For more information, see this article.
'>
McGill University
Office for Science and Society
Separating Sense from Nonsense
Enter your keywords
Main navigation
Home<br>Our Articles<br>Who We Are<br>Dr. Joe's Books<br>Events<br>Our History<br>Public Lectures<br>Past Newsletters<br>Contributor Submission<br>Photo Gallery: The McGill OSS Separates 25 Years of Separating Sense from Nonsense
Subscribe to the OSS Weekly Newsletter!
Sign-Up Here
Home
The Strange Story of Nicotine Patches to Treat Long COVID
Nicotine was hypothesized to protect against COVID-19, but the evidence doesn’t quite make sense.
Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. | 20 Nov 2025 Medical<br>Health and Nutrition<br>Pseudoscience
Add to calendar
Tweet Widget
Long COVID can feel like being adrift at sea, tiringly kicking those legs to stay above water. Social media provides lifebuoys but many turn out to be tricks of the light.
What about nicotine? On Facebook, you will find sober recommendations to try nicotine patches to save you from drowning in the fatigue of long COVID, as well as more conspiratorial takes on the problematic substance. I have seen a bold headline declaring nicotine to be “the slandered savior”—accompanied by the hashtag “#BigPharmaLies,” no less—and the claim that the World Health Organization (WHO) is trying to ban tobacco, which contains nicotine, knowing full well that it is a cure and a way to stop the WHO’s “depopulation agenda.” On the platform, end users knock elbows with enthusiastic chiropractors and more moderate physicians, all trying to make sense of the nicotine-long-COVID connection.
This idea that nicotine can treat long COVID originates from an early observation which led to a hypothesis. But what happens when the evidence for this hypothesis doesn’t completely add up?
Long COVID is real but incredibly complex
While the WHO declared the end of COVID-19 as a global health emergency in the summer of 2023, most seem to forget an important part of their announcement: “it does not mean the disease is no longer a global threat.” As we go about our lives ignoring the virus, it continues to infect, debilitate, and kill every week.
The organization COVID-19 Resources Canada, led by infectious disease researcher Tara Moriarty, estimates that, as of this writing, one in every 188 Canadians is currently infected with the coronavirus. This estimate comes from limited wastewater surveillance, test positivity rates, and excess mortality, because we no longer have straightforward numbers to rely on: the Government of Canada only reports on the percentage of COVID-19 tests that are positive, a statistic of limited use as few people continue to test themselves—earlier this month, the statistic only included 1,778 COVID-19 tests for the entire country that week.
As with other infections, COVID-19 can linger, and those long-term symptoms are referred to as long COVID. We still do not have a clear picture of how many people infected by the coronavirus will go on to develop long COVID. I have seen sources that put the percentage at 1% and others at more than 10%. What counts as long COVID is not easy to judge. If I catch the virus and a week later start feeling pain in my joints, is it due to the illness or was I “scheduled” to develop arthritis at this point in my life? The symptoms of long COVID are also numerous, and they involve every organ system in the body. Defining long COVID remains the subject of debates.
Research into the condition has unearthed a slew of findings that make it hard to decide if long COVID is a single entity or more an umbrella term for various independent complications from the initial infection. In some long COVID patients, we see alterations in cells of the immune system; higher levels of antibodies directed at the body’s own cells; dormant viruses, like the Epstein-Barr virus, being awakened; an insufficient production of antibodies against the coronavirus; indications that the coronavirus remains in the body in hidden reservoirs; and many more telltale signs of dysregulation and dysfunction. Not every long COVID patient checks all of these boxes, which leads to contradictions and attempts at separating long COVID into discrete entities. Yet, far from being a peculiar condition, long COVID often resembles myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome or ME/CFS: indeed, it is estimated that about half of all long COVID patients meet the criteria for ME/CFS, itself a poorly understood, draining condition.
Treating long COVID has proven difficult; yet some claim it is as simple as applying a nicotine patch on the arm.
A pack of Gauloises a day keeps the doctor away?
The nicotinic hypothesis was formulated quickly: a month after our own university moved to working from home, a group in Paris...