Lung Diseases

Located in the chest on either side of the heart, lungs are one of the vital organs in the human body required for respiration. Their main functions includes transporting oxygen inhaled from the atmosphere to our bloodstream and releasing carbon dioxide from the bloodstream, back into the atmosphere. To put it simply, when our lungs do not perform efficiently we end up having difficulty with breathing. Lung disease refers to several disorders that affect the lungs. Lung cancer, asthma, tuberculosis, influenza and pneumonia are some kinds of lung diseases.

Types of Lung Diseases

Lung Tissue Diseases

The problem when afflicted with these diseases, lies in the structure of the lung tissue. When the lung tissue gets damaged, the lungs fail to expand fully. In other words, it affects the capacity of the lungs to take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide. Pulmonary fibrosis is one such lung tissue disease.

Pulmonary Circulation Diseases

In this case, the blood vessels of the lungs are affected. This hampers the proper functioning of the lungs and these diseases can sometimes even affect the functioning of the heart.

Airway Diseases

As the name airway diseases suggests, a person afflicted with this kind of disease will have difficulty with regard to the airways or tubes that transport oxygen and other gases in and out of the lungs. The disease causes a blockage or narrowing of the airways and so, it makes the person’s breathing labored and restricted. Asthma is one kind of airway lung disease.

Some of the common symptoms of lung diseases include:

shortness of breath
cough
wheezing
discomfort or pain while inhaling and exhaling

In some cases, a person can also cough up blood. Other symptoms include a bluish discoloration of the skin of the person owing to lack of oxygen. Patients with lung diseases sometimes complain of having chest pain. Some of these symptoms can be misleading. For instance, the shortness of breath experienced by a person could also be caused due to a problem with blood pressure or the heart. In order to understand the symptom, the person should investigate the cause with the help of a medical practitioner.

Definition of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is generally associated with the diseases emphysema and chronic bronchitis. These two diseases involve characteristic chronic obstruction of the airways within the lungs subsequently affecting airflow. The obstruction is likely to be permanent and will progress with the passage of time.

Some factors may increase the risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. A few of these factors are listed below.

Smoking contributes to an estimated 90% of COPD cases. It affects just about 15% of smokers. The death rate for smokers is also higher than for non-smokers affected by the condition and in general they also tend to have respiratory symptoms more often and experience a greater degree of damage to lung function.
Second hand smoke has been suspected although the exact figures for those affected by the disease because of second had smoke has not been established.
Air pollution may provoke COPD symptoms. Outdoor air pollution has not been determined to cause COPD but will irritate the condition. Indoor air pollution however, has been linked to the development of COPD specifically from exposure to pollutants from indoor cooking with stoves.
Occupational hazards such as exposure to silica and cadmium appear to elevate the risk of developing COPD. This is typically an issue for construction workers, cotton workers, coal miners and metal workers among others.
The rare inherited genetic flaw which causes a deficiency of alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT) has been identified as a cause of COPD. It accounts for below 1% of COPD cases in the United States.

sign and symptoms