Good Film on COPD and it`s health care costs ($42.6 billion)

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) refers to chronic bronchitis and emphysema, a pair of two commonly co-existing diseases of the lungs in which the airways become narrowed. This leads to a limitation of the flow of air to and from the lungs causing shortness of breath. In contrast to asthma, the limitation of airflow is poorly reversible and usually gets progressively worse over time.

COPD is caused by noxious particles or gases, most commonly from smoking, which trigger an abnormal inflammatory response in the lung. The inflammatory response in the larger airways is known as chronic bronchitis, which is diagnosed clinically when people regularly cough up sputum. In the alveoli, the inflammatory response causes destruction of the tissues of the lung, a process known as emphysema. The natural course of COPD is characterized by occasional sudden worsenings of symptoms called acute exacerbations, most of which are caused by infections or air pollution.

The diagnosis of COPD requires lung function tests. Important management strategies are smoking cessation, vaccinations, rehabilitation, and drug therapy (often using inhalers). Some patients go on to requiring long-term oxygen therapy or lung transplantation.

Worldwide, COPD ranked 6th as the cause of death in 1990. It is projected to be the third leading cause of death worldwide by 2020 due to an increase in smoking rates and demographic changes in many countries.[2] COPD is the 4th leading cause of death in the U.S., and the economic burden of COPD in the U.S. in 2007 was $42.6 billion in health care costs and lost productivity.

COPD is also known as chronic obstructive lung disease (COLD), chronic obstructive airway disease (COAD), chronic airflow limitation (CAL) and chronic obstructive respiratory disease.

Some Occupational Lung Diseases and Their Causes

* Asbestosis, caused by exposure to asbestos particles. Often found among people who worked in shipyards, asbestos mines, and factories that refined or used asbestos to manufacture products.
* Black lung (Coalworker's pneumoconiosis) which affects coal workers
* Chronic Beryllium disease (CBD), which affects workers in a variety of metallurgical occupations
* Byssinosis (brown lung disease), often occurs in cotton and textile workers when bacteria released from cotton or other materials is inhaled and grows with the lungs. This is often associated with poor ventilation systems.
* Hypersensitivity pneumonitis, this can affect people who work in office buildings whose air-conditioning systems are contaminated by certain fungi and bacteria.
* Occupational asthma, can affect people who work with a variety of materials. This includes animals (dander), carbamates (urethanes), dyes, epoxy resins and enzymes used in detergent, leather goods, latex, and automotive paints
* Silicosis often developed by people who worked with clay, sand and stone dust including miners, stone cutters and sandblasters.

job hazards in Lung Cancer

As we know cigarettes are the most important cause of lung cancer,But chemicals and other on-the-job hazards "play a remarkable role" in lung cancer risk.

5% of lung cancers in men are job-related. Men in the known to be risky occupations were 74% more likely to have been diagnosed with lung cancer.

The strongest associations were seen for ceramic and pottery jobs and brick manufacturing, as well as for those working in manufacturing of non-iron metals.

A Chest X-Ray shows a right upper lobe (RUL) mass due to lung cancer.

fat meals in asthmatic patients

It is a known fact that high-fat meals are bad for the heart, but a recent study showed that the lungs have to suffer also. Australian researchers tested 40 asthmatic patients before and after a high-fat meal or after a low-fat meal, and found that the high-fat meal increased inflammation and reduced lung function.


“Subjects who had consumed the high-fat meal had an increase in airway neutrophils and TLR4 mRNA gene expression from sputum cells, that didn’t occur following the low fat meal,” said Dr. Lisa Wood, Ph.D., research fellow of the University of Newcastle. “The high fat meal impaired the asthmatic response to albuterol. In subjects who had consumed a high fat meal, the post-albuterol improvement in lung function at three and four hours was suppressed.”

The researchers found that markers of airway inflammation increased significantly among those who ate the high-fat meal. They also found that lung function was affected as well. And people who were given the high-fat meal who then used their asthma inhaler medication saw just a 1 percent improvement in their lung function. Those on the low-fat meal saw a 4.5 percent increase in their lung function after using their medication.

The mechanism by which a high fat meal could change the bronchodilator response requires further investigation.

“We are designing more studies to investigate this effect. We are also investigating whether drugs that modify fat metabolism could suppress the negative effects of a high fat meal in the airways,” said Dr. Wood. “If these results can be confirmed by further research, this suggests that strategies aimed at reducing dietary fat intake may be useful in managing asthma.”

New technology may help people quit smoking more easily

A new technology developed by researchers from Duke University Medical Center may soon help people quit smoking more easily. The new technology, which delivers more efficiently nicotine to the blood stream, provides immediate relief to withdrawal symptoms.

“We wanted to replicate the experience of smoking without incurring the dangers associated with cigarettes, and we wanted to do so more effectively than the nicotine replacement therapies currently on the market,” said Jed Rose, Ph.D., director of the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research.

Unlike other nicotine vapor delivery systems like Nicotrol or Nicorette inhalers, the new technology combines nicotine with the vapor phase of pyurvic acid to form a salt called nicotine pyruvate which, when inhaled, replicates the natural inhalation used by smokers when drawing on a cigarette. This results in lower craving for ciggarets, rapid increase in plasma nicotine concentrations and a lower irritation compared to Nicotrol or Nicorette.

“Compared to the current nicotine vapor inhaler, we are able to give smokers more nicotine, although still less than a cigarette, with less irritation, resulting in reduced cravings,” said Rose. “Thus we are able to achieve a therapeutic effect with greater tolerability.”

The inhalation system may one day prove useful for other medications delivery but for now more research is needed to asses its role in helping people quit smoking and to examine the safety and effectiveness of prolonged use of the inhalation system.

The Real Cost of Smoking

Need another reason to quit smoking? Smoking causes 1 out of 5 deaths in America. Understand the real costs of smoking, and you'll be ready to put down that cigarette!