Emphysema: How You Get It, and How to Fight It

The Surgeon General is right. Cigarette smoking is hazardous—even lethal—to your health.

Affecting an estimated two million Americans, emphysema is a chronic respiratory condition, nearly always caused by the destruction of lung tissue by toxins contained in cigarette smoke. This in turn leads to chronic overinflation of the lungs, greatly decreasing their ability to function.

Like chronic bronchitis , emphysema is a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) that evolves over a period of time. Specifically, emphysema destroys the structural architecture of the lungs and results in destruction of the alveoli, the approximately three million tiny air sacs in the lungs. Oxygen is delivered to the lungs and carbon dioxide is carried from the lungs across the walls of the alveoli; as more and more alveoli are damaged, it becomes harder and harder for the lungs to function, causing one or more of the following symptoms:

• Shortness of breath
• Increasing difficulty exercising
• Great difficulty exhaling
• Chronic coughing
• Tiredness and fatigue
• Chest pain
• Persistent swelling of feet and ankles (this is a sign that your lungs aren't functioning properly)
• Weight loss
• The need to sleep on more pillows than usual to breathe at night

As the disease progresses, breathing becomes increasingly difficult. In its most severe stage, virtually any physical activity becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible. (To feel what it's like to have emphysema, try the following: take a very deep breath then, without exhaling, try to continue breathing in and out.)