More bad news for smokers

If you thought you knew all about the ill-effects of smoking, here's more.

A new study has revealed that the lifetime risk of developing a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, such as bronchitis or emphysema, is significantly higher than was previously thought, reports the Los Angeles Times.

'Through the Copenhagen City Heart Study, which began in 1976 and is ongoing, researchers have been studying more than 8,000 men and women between the ages of 30 and 60, focusing mainly on cardiovascular and pulmonary risk factors. No other study has looked at lung function in smokers for that long,' it says.

"Our study shows a lifetime risk of at least 25 per cent. One in four smokers develops COPD," the article quotes Dr Peter Lange --  professor at the department of cardiology and respiratory medicine at Hvidovre Hospital in Denmark and an author of the study published last week in the online journal Thorax -- as saying.

"Previously, we thought that the absolute risk was about 15%." People who have never smoked have a less than 5% risk of COPD, according to the study. Add up all the disease risks quantified so far, and about half of continual smokers will die of a smoking-related illness, losing an average of six to 10 years of their life spans, he said.

'The study doesn't differentiate between heavy and light smokers. Researchers divided people according to the date they quit within a 25-year period. The longer a person had not smoked, the lower his or her risk,' said the Times article.

But quitting even after many years has immediate benefits. "There is a cessation of symptoms like cough and phlegm production and a lower risk of chest infections," Lange was quoted as saying.  But there's no getting back what has been lost. "If the lung function is reduced at the time of quitting, it will not return to normal."

Still, when a smoker stops, the lungs begin to age naturally from that point on. "Stopping smoking means the damage to the lungs stops," Lange said.

"This is an important study showing that people are even more at risk of COPD than we previously thought. It should act as a further wake-up call to smokers to get their lungs tested and to get help to stop," the BBC quoted Professor Stephen Spiro  of the British Lung Foundation as saying.