Air Pollution And Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

There is nothing harder than watching patients, young or old, struggle with very breath, often requiring nasal oxygen twenty-four hours a day. This is the case in those with chronic obstructive pulmonary-disease (COPD), which includes emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and bronchiolitis. These patients are hardly able to exert themselves at all find that their pulmonary disability greatly hampers their joy in living. Not everyone is able to make a conscious choice to live in a healthy environment, but prevention weighs heavily in the mind. Here again, it is not the years in life that are important, but the quality of life we have in those years.

Air pollution is a key player. Considerable evidence shows that the inhalation of cigarette smoke and airborne pollutants causes the increased oxidative stress that is the underlying cause of COPD. The resultant chronic inflammation in one’s airways creates even more oxidative stress, which leads to the damage of sensitive lung tissue. This eventually decreases lung infection by disrupting the easy transfer of oxygen through these damaged membranes to the blood.

Health is not simply a matter of building up your body’s antioxidant defense system. If you are developing COPD and have never been a smoker or are not presently smoking, nutritional supplementation may become the best way to slow down the progression of COPD. The basic principles apply with all of these chronic lung diseases just as it does with asthma; the better chances of hindering its progression.

Once the lung has become seriously damaged, as many smokers have discovered, there is very little chance of significantly improving their lung function.

 

 

 

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