Caduces

My roommate smoked for 28 years and  has mild/moderate canse of COPD and i’ve witnessed him struggle for breath as he walks even half a block!  It’s a scary disease.

From Fox.com:

If you can’t climb stairs without feeling fatigued, or walk very far without huffing and puffing, it could be an early indication that your lungs are being compromised by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said Dr. Leonard Horowitz, pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

COPD, a two-part inflammatory response in the lungs that causes difficulty breathing as a result of narrowing of the air passage, is the fourth-leading cause of death among adults in America.

“It’s a horrible way to exist,” Horowitz told FoxNews.com. “There are some patients who get so bad that they have to be on ventilators… and the patients can be really miserable.”

And COPD’s leading cause is preventable. Although chemical fumes, air pollution and other industrial exposures can cause the disease, smoking is responsible for 80 to 90 percent of cases, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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