Causes of Emphysema
Emphysema is a lung disease that gets worse as time goes on, resulting in diminished lung capacity and breathing ability. Emphysema damages the tiny air sacs in the lungs and airways, making it difficult to exhale. The symptoms of emphysema include being short of breath, fatigue and weight loss. Once the disease becomes advanced, the damage that the lungs suffered cannot be reversed.
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Function
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A person's airways and lungs contain millions of small air sacs called alveoli, in which tiny capillaries work to add oxygen to your blood while taking away carbon dioxide. These air sacs have elastic fibers that expand when you breathe. In the lungs of someone with emphysema, inflammation makes these elastic fibers lose their ability to stretch. Air gets trapped in the air sacs, they get stretched out, and the person has a hard time exhaling. A cycle begins: not being able to get rid of carbon dioxide, and not being able to take in enough oxygen. In severe cases, this eventually leads to death, often from respiratory failure.
Effects
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Smoking is easily the most common cause of emphysema. The smoke from tobacco products has the ability to paralyze, for a short time, the small hairs called cilia that line the bronchial tubes to the lungs. These hairs are supposed to keep irritants and germs from settling in the airways, but when they cannot perform their function these irritants stay in the airway and work to inflame tissue, which leads to emphysema.
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Features
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Emphysema can also result from the lack of sufficient levels of a protein called alpha-1-antitrypsin. This protein serves to protect the elasticity of the lungs from certain forms of enzymes that can destroy them. Low levels of this protein can cause emphysema in individuals between the ages of 30 and 40--with the severity of the disease much worse if the person happens to be a smoker. A defective gene is responsible for this condition; millions of people possess a single problematic gene that can lead to mild emphysema symptoms.
Considerations
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More unusual causes of emphysema include using intravenous drugs with additives that prove to be poisonous to the lungs. Immune-system diseases that come with frequent infections can cause emphysema. Connective tissue maladies such as Marfan's Syndrome can result in the disease as well. Marfan's and other connective tissue disorders affect the fibers that make up the framework of the body. The lungs begin to lose their elasticity because of these diseases, having the same effect as smoking does on them.
Constant breathing in of chemical fumes such as chlorine can lead to emphysema, and working in areas contaminated with large amounts of fine dusts, such as in mines, can also result in emphysema.
Prevention/Solution
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Not smoking or quitting smoking is the best way to prevent emphysema. Once emphysema has been diagnosed the effects cannot be undone, but if it is a mild case it can be dealt with. However, severe cases will eventually be fatal. Supplemental oxygen, inhalers that can increase air flow in the lungs, corticosteroids, antibiotics and possible lung surgery are some ways emphysema can be treated.
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