Cigarette smoking is understood to be bad for your overall health. However, will cigarette smoking worsen the progression of immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN)? The condition is a leading cause of end-stage renal disease and researchers in West China sought to find out and explain what they did, what they found, and what it means.* 

What They Did

Researchers retrieved 1,239 participants from West China Hospital of Sichuan University and divided them into two groups:

• Smokers (Current and Former)
• Non-Smokers

Participants were monitored for 61 months. After this time, analysis was performed to evaluate the effects of cigarette smoking on the prognosis of IgAN.

What They Found

The researchers’ analysis showed that smoking does negatively affect IgAN patients. Specifically, their results showed:

• A significant correlation between cigarette smoking and renal outcomes in IgAN.
• Cigarette smoking was an independent risk factor predicting chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression, especially for CKD stages 3-4, in IgAN. 
• Cigarette smoking was correlated with a worsening estimated glomerular filtration rate (indicates kidney function status) and an increase in proteinuria (protein in urine). 

What it Means

While cigarette smoking should be discouraged for everyone, especially those with a chronic illness, more research is needed to support the effects of cigarette smoking on IgAN. The study admitted having limitations, which included the majority of participants being men and the collection of patients was from only a single hospital. 

*Wang, S. (2021, June 29). Cigarette smoking may accelerate the progression of IgA nephropathy. BMC Nephrology. https://bmcnephrol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12882-021-02453-4