Women and COPD

COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – EPOC in Spanish) is a serious lung disease that makes breathing difficult.  It kills more than 120,000 Americans each year, affects one in four adults over the age of 45, kills more women than men, and is projected to be the third leading cause of death by 2020. 

Women who smoke or have smoked are being stricken down by COPD much more frequently than men. In fact, the COPD death rate has doubled for women between 1980 and 2000.

WOMEN AND COPD
While health conscious Southern Californians have heeded the call to quit smoking, COPD has emerged as a major killer of women. Why? Because women began to smoke in record numbers due in part to a wildly successful 1970’s marketing campaign by Virginia Slims cigarettes featuring smoking as a way women could express their independence and newfound freedom. In fact, women embraced the 1970’s smoking boom so wholeheartedly that since 2000, more women than men have been hospitalized or have died due to COPD and deaths overall attributed to COPD nearly tripled between 1980 and 2000.

“When I started out as a doctor, in the 1970’s, many of the nurses smoked,” said BREATHE LA Board Member Dr Yosef Aelony, “even in the hospitals, people who were sensitive or allergic to cigarette smoke didn’t have the clout they have today. Californians have been able to pass sometimes draconian laws against smoking.” Despite the trend against smoking, teens and women, particularly in minority communities continue to take up cigarette smoking. This may be related to persistent mythmaking about the role cigarette smoking plays in weight control. Smoking can blunt appetite, but can also create lasting health problems including COPD. BREATHE LA COPD Awareness Campaign features eye-catching ads “Skinny Has a Price, COPD” with information on COPD that are appearing throughout Los Angeles during the month of November.

BREATHE LA COPD RESEARCH
“GETS ME DANCING AGAIN”
“Oh yes, I smoked,” laughs Darlene H, a retired government worker who lives in Long Beach, CA, “I ran for a bus and got so out of breath, coughing and wheezing so bad, that I decided to quit smoking that day.” She was 37 years old and had smoked for more than two decades.

Recently diagnosed with COPD, Darlene is taking part in BREATHE LA Center for Healthy Lungs innovative COPD Research Study at UCLA funded by BREATHE LA Center for Healthy Lungs, “I’m seeing a real improvement. It makes such a difference.” After she quit smoking, Darlene gained twenty pounds, “Yeah, I ate instead of smoked, but I lost the weight. It’s easy if you exercise, and I’m making my lungs and my heart stronger with exercise.”

Darlene was not aware she had COPD. At 67, she had accepted breathlessness as a natural result of aging. When she was diagnosed with COPD, “I just found it astonishing. I had no idea.” Darlene was accepted in BREATHE LA COPD research study conducted by Dr Christopher Cooper at UCLA and says, “I already see an improvement. In fact, I went dancing Saturday night and I was wearing heels and breathing was not a barrier to having fun. The heels, well, I can’t do that anymore, but the exercise gets me dancing again and hey! I can do that!”

Since 2000, yearly increases in COPD diagnoses have included dramatic increases among minority women. COPD  “hot spots” include poor and minority neighborhoods like those targeted for service by BREATHE LA Pulmones Libres / Breathe Free program. 

REATHE LA PULMONES LIBRES / BREATHE FREE PROGRAM. 
Pulmones Libres / Breathe Free is a COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) awareness and education program funded by a grant from Queenscare Foundation to provide free workshops on COPD for community members and service providers and to outreach to medically indigent adults in 10 targeted zip code areas in the Los Angeles inner city Latino community (90004, 90005, 90006, 90020, 90026, 90027, 90028, 90029, 90038, 90057) for 2-hour COPD management classes spanning 4 weeks. The classes provide an overview of COPD and its symptoms, how to quit smoking, breathing exercises, and dealing with depression associated with COPD.

Community members identified as at risk for COPD through the Pulmones Libres / Breathe Free  presentations and workshops are referred to Better Breathers Clubs and to health care providers for diagnosis and treatment including oxygen therapy, one of the most effective therapies for COPD. Physical exercise is also and effective method of expanding lung capacity and BREATHE LA Research projects include a BREATHE LA Center for Healthy Lungs-funded study being conducted at UCLA. The study focuses on exercise as a promising treatment to improve lung function and quality of life for those suffering from COPD.

85% of all COPD cases are caused by smoking and symptoms usually start after age 40. Most COPD patients have smoked at least a pack a day for over ten years. But it is not just cigarettes that cause COPD. Urban air pollution causes up to 10% of the disease. COPD starts decades before symptoms appear.

WHAT IS COPD?
COPD is the name for a group of degenerative, irreversible and debilitating lung diseases that cannot be cured, including Emphysema and Chronic Bronchitis. There are over 1.6 million diagnosed cases of COPD in California and it is estimated that about as many are undiagnosed. COPD has traditionally been thought of as an old man’s disease, but half of all COPD patients are under 65 and many are women. COPD is most often characterized by shortness of breath and a persistent cough.  Those over age 40 with a history of smoking are particularly at risk, but 1 in 6 people with COPD have never smoked. Even among those who quit smoking years ago, the damage is done. The terrible surprise of COPD is that it is a progressive, irreversible disease that can wait to present symptoms until long after smoking and air pollution damage has taken hold in the lungs.

 “The biggest problem is denial,” says Yosef Aelony, a pulmonologist and member of the Board of Directors of BREATHE LA, “People say ‘I can quit when I have to but by the time symptoms hit, whether cancer or COPD, that’s already too late. Some diseases like COPD come on slowly. So if you think you’re going to smoke until you have symptoms, you’re fooling yourself.”

BREATHE LA COPD Awareness campaign is designed to educate inner city residents in Los Angeles about the disease and its risk factors, and to encourage early diagnosis. 

 “Millions of people have the disease and don’t even know it,” says James Kiley, PhD., Director, Division of Lung Diseases, NHLBI.  “Now is the time. During COPD Awareness Month, if you think you are at risk, we encourage you to ask your healthcare provider about a simple breathing test called spirometry to help diagnose the disease.”

COPD sufferers experience frightening bouts of breathlessness compounded by the stigma of self-induced illness. “Misconceptions and prejudice cause patients to ignore or wish away symptoms and avoid diagnosis. Because you smoked, you deserve lung disease? No. No one deserves COPD,” says Dr. Aelony. Diagnosis of a devastating lung disease like COPD can be frightening but there is hope. Early detection and effective treatment , including exercise and oxygen therapy, can delay debilitation and improve day to day quality of life.

COPD AWARENESS CAMPAIGN
COPD is so often misunderstood and so often undiagnosed that the “O” in COPD “could stand for OBSCURE or OVERLOOKED.” BREATHE LA is working to change that with COPD Awareness Campaign activities that include Workshops, Radio PSAs and the announcement of BREATHE LA COPD AWARENESS DAY on November 14, 2008.

BREATHE LA works to alleviate future suffering by partnering with high school students in 4-U-N-I Teens Helping Teens Quit Smoking program that features peer-to-peer mentoring and offers quit smoking messages in a teen-friendly way. 4-U-N-I Teens Helping Teens Quit Smoking program materials are provided on BREATHE LA website so that high school students can start a 4-U-N-I program in their school, no matter where it is. Teens distribute materials including “Reasons not to smoke : makes you stink, makes you less desirable to opposite sex, makes you ugly ( wrinkles ), makes you a slave to the habit ( vs independent )” Students at Granada Hills High School and Beverly Hills High School have established active 4-U-N-I Teens Helping Teens Quit Smoking Chapters.