What Is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)?

If you have not heard of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) then you should have, as it is the 4th leading cause of death in the UK. COPD is not one condition but a collection of conditions that all have the same basic effect in impeding your ability to breath easily and freely. The tubes that carry air in and out of your lungs are partly obstructed, making it difficult to breathe.

Our lungs are not like a giant balloon but are, in fact, comprised of many small sacs of air. If you imagine that your airways look like an upside down tree, the sacs of air are located at the end of each branch. When we breathe, the air fills and empties from these elastic, springy sacs. In someone with COPD these important air sacs have been damaged: they have lost their shape and become floppy. The result, depending on the amount of damage, is anything from minor difficulty in breathing, to having to be placed on artificial breathing devices to be kept alive.

There are a few reasons why breathing becomes more difficult. The elasticity can be lost in the air sac not allowing it to expand the way it used to. The walls between many of the air sacs can also become destroyed. It is also possible for swelling in the walls of the airway to restrict air movement, or for mucous to build up and cause clogging.

The effects of COPD are sometimes hard for us to identify because there is no sudden and dramatic onset of symptoms. The damage, and resulting breathing problems, occurs slowly over time. This is also the reason why the vast majority of sufferers are middle aged or older people.

It will come as no surprise to learn that in more than 80% of cases the main culprit is our old friend the cigarette. The list of the negative effects of smoking is a mile long and sitting in the number one position is COPD.

There is no cure for COPD. The damage to your airways and lungs cannot be reversed. However, COPD is not contagious you cannot catch it from someone else.

The two most common forms of COPD are chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Both are chronic (long-term) illnesses that require significant treatment and lifestyle changes.

Chronic Bronchitis

We already know that one of the reasons our breathing can be affected is when our airways become inflamed and mucous collects restricting air movement. This is called Chronic Bronchitis. In this respiratory disorder, the air passages in the lungs are inflamed, and the mucous-producing glands in the larger air passages of the lungs (bronchi) are enlarged. These enlarged glands produce too much mucous, which triggers a cough. Chronic bronchitis is where this cough lasts for at least three months of the year and for two consecutive years.

Chronic bronchitis affects about 3% of all people in the UK. The highest risk group is men over the age of 40. Some of they key contributing factors for chronic bronchitis are:

• Exposure to polluted air
• Smoking
• Living with a smoker, or working in a smoky environment
• Exposure to environments that contain airborne organic dusts or toxic gases, especially in cotton mills and plastic manufacturing plants
• Recent respiratory disorders

Different people have different symptoms of this condition. The quality and consistency of the mucus produced and range from thick and coloured to thin and clear. The effects on a persons breathing are much like those of asthma, including wheezing and shortness of breath. Over time the airways become narrowed, limiting the amount of oxygen that gets to the air sacs in the lungs. Blood vessels constrict in an attempt to divert the blood to better-oxygenated areas of the lung. This increases the blood pressure in the arteries that feed the lungs, and strains the right side of the heart. Eventually, if this continued high blood pressure remains in the lungs, heart failure can develop, causing blood to back up in the liver, abdomen and legs.

Emphysema

Emphysema is caused by the destruction of the tiny air sacs in the lungs. When this happens the lungs are unable to contract correctly and will eventually lose their all-important elasticity. The lungs will then lose their ability to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen due to the formation of holes in the lung tissue. People with emphysema have a great deal of difficulty breathing and this can affect their daily lives considerably. Some of they key risk factors for emphysema are:

• Exposure to polluted air
• Smoking
• Anyone living with a smoker or working in a smoky environment
• Exposure to environments that contain airborne irritants or noxious chemicals (lead, mercury, coal dust, hydrogen sulfide)

It is also possible to inherit emphysema. Some people are born with lack a protective protein in the lungs called alpha-1-antitrypsin. In people with this form of the disease, lung damage can appear as early as age 30, decades sooner than smoking-related emphysema usually starts.