Keeping your lungs healthy is essential to feeling your best. Yet, common factors, including exposure to cigarette smoke and environmental toxins, as well as eating an inflammatory diet, can take a toll on this pair of important organs. What’s more, common conditions, such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and pulmonary fibrosis, can significantly…
Among other side effects, smoking does cause blood vessels to constrict. This can lead to sometimes life-threatening events like a heart attack or stroke. Smoking is linked to a wide range of negative health effects, including heart disease. The chemicals in cigarette smoke irritate blood vessels, causing inflammation and swelling. Quitting smoking allows your heart…
The results suggest that some diseases that are considered non-communicable, such as cancer, could have a component that makes them transmissible by microorganisms in the digestive system. Here’s an unsettling fact: there are more bacterial cells in a person’s body (38 trillion) than human cells (30 trillion). One of the world’s gurus of microbiology, Frederic…
If you’ve ever tried to quit vaping, then you know how challenging it can be. Although research published in July 2022 in JAMA Network Open found a slight decrease in the overall e-cigarette, or vaping, users, daily e-cigarette use by current users rose from 34.5% in 2017 to 44.4% in 2020. The daily usage is likely linked…
The cigarette is the only legal consumer product that—when used as intended—causes the premature death of half of the long-term users. To address this long-standing health threat, in late June 2022, the Biden-Harris administration announced a plan to move forward with a new standard for cigarettes and other combusted tobacco products that would make them minimally or…
E-cigarette and hookah waterpipe users may be at greater risk than tobacco cigarette smokers for cancers of the nose, sinuses, and throat, according to a new study. That’s because vapers and hookah users are more than twice as likely to exhale smoke through their nose as cigarette smokers, who typically exhale smoke through the mouth, the researchers explained. “Our findings suggest that the…
Patients with both heart failure (HF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) face a unique set of challenges and impairments compared with those with just one of the diseases, according to a new report. The study, published in Scientific Reports, offers new insights to help physicians better treat patients with overlapping conditions. Corresponding author Audrey Borghi-Silva, PhD, MSc, of the…
Cognitive behavioral therapy can help people with COPD deal with the anxiety associated with breathing difficulties. Relaxation techniques are among the therapies people with COPD can use for anxiety. Imagine not being able to breathe easily. You’d probably be a little anxious. That’s what happens to many of the 12 million adults in the United States…