The first years of life are fundamental for the development of people, and also the pillars of a healthy life begin to be established from birth. For example, the state of the lungs and the risk of developing chronic respiratory problems are determined in childhood, so you have to be especially careful when they are small.
Living with a smoker or having small lung infections are risk factors, since they encourage the onset of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in adulthood, with bronchitis, asthma and / or emphysema. It also influences the fact of having parents with asthma or having suffered asthma in childhood.
If you start having a reduced lung function, this ability becomes permanent and does not recover with age. On the contrary, it deteriorates and the chances of suffering from lung disease are increasing constructive chronic.
A recent study published in the international journal of respiratory medicine "Thorax" by the team of Cecilie Svanes of the University Hospital of Haukeland (Norway) confirms these facts. The researchers took data from more than 13,000 men and women aged 20 to 45, confirming that those who were included in the previous risk factors (40%) increased the possibility of having COPD.
Specifically, the study determines that the disease was six and seven times more common in men and women, respectively, who had been exposed to one of those three factors. Exposure to two "disadvantages" multiplied the risk of COPD in men five times and doubled in women.
The research, entitled "Early life origins of chronic obstructive pulmonary diseasese", can be read completely from here (in English).
These are risks similar to those that an adult would have for smoking, so we have to take great care of the do not expose babies and children to tobacco smoke for their health, because it is practically as if they smoked directly.
And, although there is still a long way to go, I am glad of the advances that have taken place in countries like Spain in recent years, because when I was a child, smoking in the same room as a baby was considered normal. But, as I say, there is still a lot of information and awareness.
