Addicted smokers are at higher risk of getting Lung Cancer

If you are ardently devoted to smoking then you are at a higher risk of developing a chronic, obstructive lung disease, a study by British and Danish researchers revealed.

According to the research team, at least one in four addicted smokers will develop the progressive and incurable lung disease - chronic obstructive pulmonarydefine disease (COPD).

COPD is a lung disease in which the lungs become so damaged that it is hard to breathe - the airways are partly obstructed, making it difficult to get air in and out. COPD, is type of progressive and incurable respiratory diseases, including bronchitis and emphysema, which block air flow through the lungs.

In their long-term health study, the health experts in the Danish capital of Copenhagen included 8,045 men and women aged between 30 and 60. The researchers monitored the study subjects for 25 years. More than 5,000 study participants were smokers and just over 1200 were ex smokers, while the remaining 1,800 had never smoked.

All the participants had healthy lungs at the time of start of the study, and they did not have any respiratory problems.

After observing the subjects for 25 years, the scientists noted that the results showed the risk is much higher than previously anticipated.

The results showed that among the men, who were still alive, 96 percent of "never smokers" still had healthy lungs, compared with only 59 percent among continuous smokers. Among women, 91 percent of "never smokers" had no lung problems after the long study period, whereas among female smokers the figure was 69 percent.

They discovered that only 6 out of 10 smokers had normal working lungs, while it was 7 out of 10 for the female smokers. Volunteers who refused to give up the habit were six times more likely to develop COPD than non smokers and one in four of them developed stage 2 or higher COPD.

As per the study data, of the 2,900 deaths recorded over the 25 years, 109 were directly attributable to COPD. Only two of the 109 were non-smokers.

The observers say that the risk of COPD declined among those who quitted smoking soon after the study began, which accounts for the reality that none of the ex-smokers developed severe COPD.

The study unleashes in Thorax, a specialist journal of the British Medical Association (BMA).

Writing in Thorax, the researchers who were led by Dr. Peter Lange of Hvidovre Hospital, Hvidovre, Denmark, said, "Our main finding is quite simple - the longer people smoke, the higher the risk of developing COPD."

A COPD related estimated data indicates that 13.3% of Britons over 35 of age may have developed features of the disease. Between 600,000 and 900,000 people in the UK have been diagnosed with COPD, the sixth most common cause of death in England and Wales, killing more than 30,000 a year

A spokesman for the British Lung Foundation said the finding should act as a "wake-up call" to UK smokers.