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| Cause Of Emphysema |
Question:
What causes emphysema?
Answer:
In 90% of cases the cause of emphysema is smoking and new evidence also
now includes secondary smoke (passive smoking) as a potential cause as well.
A new study has confirmed that passive
smoking may cause the debilitating disease pulmonary
emphysema, which involves severe damage to the walls of
the air sacs (alveoli), causing the lungs to lose their
capacity to expand and contract (loss of elasticity).
Additionally, the researchers found that development of
pulmonary emphysema might be not only the result of an
imbalance between oxidants and antioxidants, and/or
between proteases and antiproteases, but also the
consequence of fibroblast oxidation and apoptosis caused
by cigarette smoke.
In very rare cases emphysema is inherited.
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