What Causes Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease? |

lungs Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease is a respiratory illness in which airflow through the lung’s bronchial tubes is partially blocked-up. This obstruction makes it hard to breath. Breathing can get worse to the point where it interferes with daily activities such as walking, dressing and eating.

In harsh cases it can be life threatening. Heart damage is possible if the lungs are severely damaged. A person with it may die if the lungs and heart are no longer able to carry oxygen to the body’s organs, tissues, or when a complication occurs such as a infection.

Most cases of the disease it develops after constantly breathing in fumes and other things that aggravate and harm the lungs and airways.

Cigarette smoking is the most common problem that causes it. Pipe, cigar, and other types of smoke can also cause COPD, especially if the smoke is inhaled. Breathing in other fumes and dusts over a long period of time may also cause COPD.

The lungs and airways are highly sensitive to these irritants. They cause the airways to become swollen and narrow, and they destroy the elastic fibers that allow the lung to stretch and then return to its resting shape. This makes breathing air in and out of the lungs more difficult.

In the USA , at least 400,000 people die each year as a result of diseases related to cigarette smoking. In COPD, most of the damage to the airways and lungs caused by cigarette smoking is not reversible. However, stopping smoking can definitely reduce further damage and reduce many symptoms of COPD such as chronic coughing and shortness of breath.

Cigarette smoking is the most important cause of COPD, although only about 15 to 20% of smokers develop the disease. Pipe and cigar smokers develop it more often than nonsmokers but not as often as cigarette smokers. With age, susceptible cigarette smokers lose lung function more rapidly than nonsmokers.

If a person stops smoking, there is little improvement in lung function. However, the rate of decline of lung function does return to that of nonsmokers when the person stops smoking, thus delaying the progression of symptoms.

Asthma also is a pulmonary disease in which there is obstruction to the flow of air out of the lungs, but unlike chronic bronchitis and emphysema, the obstruction in asthma usually is reversible. Between “attacks” of asthma the flow of air through the airways usually is good.