Tobacco: our lungs are more fragile than those of men
The effects of smoking on the lungs would be more severe in women than in men. It is the Norwegian researcher Inga-Cecilie Soerheim who affirms it as well as the rest of the scientists of the University of Bergen in Norway.
Their study included 954 patients with diseases Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and 955 healthy people, smokers or ex-smokers. The results of this survey were presented on May 18 at the 105th American Thoracic Society Conference in San Diego.
Dr. Soerheim explained the results of his research: "Our analysis indicates that women are more vulnerable to the effects of smoking, which has already been suspected but never proven." It is not the number of women affected that emerges, it is rather their age and the proportion of tobacco ingested compared to men: women with diseases Chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases are on average younger than men, and they are ill by having smoked much less than them.
The research was divided into two groups: the first set included individuals under 60 years of age affected by disease Chronic pulmonary disease, the second group including people with MOPC who have been smoking for less than 20 years. In these two groups, they were the sickest women.
This gap between the two sexes increases when the amount of tobacco ingested is low: "Women have narrower airways, so each cigarette can cause more damage to the lung," says Inga-Cecilie Soerheim. "The fact of smoking little does not preserve diseases associated with smoking, and this is especially true for women, "says Dawn DeMeo, the dean of the authors of the study.
