Tobacco Facts.

In our days researchers can determine whether a smoker is likely to develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or not thanks to a gene called ADAM33.
COPD is a group of 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. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease also is a progressive disease that makes it hard to breathe, can cause coughing that produces large amounts of mucus, wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and other symptoms.
The primary risk factor for COPD is chronic cigarettes smoking. In the United States, 80 to 90% of cases of COPD are due to smoking. Exposure to cigarette smoke is measured in pack-years, the average number of packages of cigarettes smoked daily multiplied by the number of years of smoking. Not all smokers will develop COPD, but continuous smokers have at least a 25% risk after 25 years. The likelihood of developing COPD increases with increasing age as the cumulative smoke exposure increases. Inhaling the smoke from other peoples’ cigarettes (passive smoking) can lead to impaired lung growth and could be a cause of COPD.
Only about a quarter of long-term smokers develop COPD, the researchers noted. ADAM33 has been shown in previous studies to be associated with asthma and over reactive airways. This relationship, however, has not been studied in tobacco smokers who are susceptible to COPD.
In the new study, the research team looked for small genetic changes or “polymorphisms” in ADAM33 in 880 long-term heavy smokers.
At the end of the study they found that two hundred eighty-seven of the study subjects had COPD and 311 did not. All of them were older than age 50 years and all had been smoking at least a pack of cigarettes each day for 20 years. And ninety-seven percent of the subjects were male.
Researchers also identified five genetic changes in ADAM33 that occurred more frequently in the COPD group than in the group of smokers without COPD.
This discovery may well open new therapeutic windows and also may prompt clinicians to take another look at how they assess health risk among smokers.

Source: Best-tobacco.com

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