Notes

How Does Smoking Contribute to COPD?
The air you breathe travels down through the windpipe, eventually making its way into bronchial tubes. Bronchial tubes then stretch out into much smaller tubes known as bronchioles, which have minuscule clusters of air sacs at the end called alveoli.

Within the small air sacs are tiny blood vessels known as capillaries. When you inhale, the oxygen moves through the air sacs and into the blood of the capillaries that are located within the air sacs. Simultaneously, carbon dioxide is moved from the blood vessels into the air sacs in a process known as gas exchange.

The elasticity in the air sacs enables this exchange to occur smoothly as they inflate and deflate with each breath. People who smoke suffer lung damage which allows less air to flow in and out of the air pathways due to:

stiffening of air sacs
degradation of wall between air sacs
thickening and inflammation of air pathway walls
increasing mucus in the air pathways, causing build-up and air obstruction
Cigarette smoke contains harmful toxins that affect lung functionality. Toxins that are inhaled directly into the lungs over prolonged periods of time can lead to high levels of abnormal lung irritation, causing the onset of COPD. As long-term exposure to cigarette smoke continues, the lungs incur more damage, including lung inflammation, and breakdown of the lung’s filter system.