What is COPD?
Smoking Facts on Emphysema and Chronic Bronchitis

What is COPD? The smoking facts on emphysema and chronic bronchitis reveal that these 2 conditions exist together.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is the term used to describe the condition where these two lung diseases caused by smoking are both present at the same time.

Smoking Facts About Chronic Obstructive Lung disease

COPD is one of the most prevalent diseases cause by smoking and accounts for significant human suffers worldwide.

Here are the smoking facts:

• the Canadian Lung Association states that 80-90% of COPD is the result of the harmful smoking effects on the lungs.


• COPD can be prevented but it cannot be cured.


• it is a major cause of disability and a leading cause of death worldwide.


• more than 12 million people have a COPD diagnosis in the USA. In Canada those numbers are around 1.5 million.


• COPD is probably under diagnosed and consequently a lot of people do not get early treatment.


• Worldwide the WHO estimates 2.74 million people died of COPD in 2000.


• men are seven times more likely to be diagnosed with COPD than women.

Symptoms

COPD symptoms include:

• shortness of breath
• moist cough that brings up lots of mucus
• feeling tired
• frequent chest infections

Of the 4 COPD symptoms listed here the main one is shortness of breath.

This means that you cannot catch your breath when you exert yourself with normal activities like going up a flight of stairs, or walking up a hill.

Typically the shortness of breath does not disappear quickly once the exertion is finished and it takes a longer time to regain your normal breathing rate after you stop the exertion.

Emphysema and chronic bronchitis are the two diseases caused by smoking that cause the typical COPD symptoms.

What is COPD and What is the Obstruction?

The chronic part of the term chronic obstructive pulmonary disease means that the disease is incurable.

The obstructive part of the term refers to the effects of emphysema and chronic bronchitis when they occur together.

Chronic bronchitis causes lots of mucus to accumulate in the airways and that can cause obstruction (See What is Bronchitis?).

But the major part of the obstruction comes from the collapse of the airways on expiration. In the normal course of events your airway tubes expand on inhalation and then return to normal size on exhalation. One of the effects of emphysema is a loss of elasticity of the airways so that instead of returning to their normal size on expiration they simply collapse.

Air in your lungs that is full of carbon dioxide cannot be exhaled and no fresh air with vital life giving oxygen can get in there to take its place.

The end result is the inability to meet the body's demand for oxygen and so you feel constantly short of breath.

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