Finding out that you or a loved one has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can be alarming and may leave you with a lot of questions. Though COPD has no cure, it’s a condition that can be managed with the right treatments and medications, according to the American Lung Association (ALA). Here’s what you need to know about COPD, including what it is, its causes, symptoms, stages and risk factors, plus the many treatment options available to those living with the condition. What is COPD? COPD is a group of progressive, chronic diseases that constrict airflow in and out of the lungs so that less oxygen moves through the body. “It’s three different illnesses, all of which create the same fundamental problem, which is you can’t blow out as fast as you should,” explained Dr. Scott Eisman, a pulmonary disease and critical care medicine specialist at Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas in California. “And those three illnesses are asthma and chronic bronchitis and emphysema — and they’re all different,” he noted. Causes and risk factors According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the cause of most cases of COPD is smoking. However, as many as 25% of people in the United States with the disease have never smoked cigarettes. “If you talk about chronic bronchitis and emphysema, the most common cause is cigarette…  read on >  read on >

Men who were overweight as boys may have infertility issues in adulthood, according to new research. Researchers studying the issue of male infertility, often a mystery, looked at health data from 268 young people between 2 and 18 years of age. They had been referred to the University of Catania in Sicily for weight control. “Although the prevalence of childhood obesity is increasing worldwide, the impact of obesity and associated metabolic disorders on testicular growth is not well known,” said study co-author Dr. Rossella Cannarella, a research fellow at the Glickman Urological & Kidney Institute in Cleveland. For the study, published May 10 in the European Journal of Endocrinology, the researchers collected data on testicular volume, body mass index and insulin resistance. They found that boys with normal weight had testicular volume that was 1.5 times higher than those who were overweight or obese before puberty. Young people in the study with normal insulin levels had 1.5 to 2 times higher testicular volume compared to those with hyperinsulinemia, which is often associated with type 2 diabetes. Lower testicular volume is a predictor of poorer sperm production in adulthood, the researchers said. About 48 million couples struggled with infertility in 2010, according to the World Health Organization. Male infertility is a contributor in about half of all infertility cases, researchers said, but its cause is often…  read on >  read on >

Does where you live affect your risk for lung cancer? Just possibly, experts warn. Although cigarette smoking is the principal cause of most lung cancers, new research has found evidence that Americans who live in areas where air quality is poor may be at greater risk for the most common cancer killer in the United States. The finding is based on mapping that zeroed in on Detroit and surrounding Wayne County, Michigan, to see how lung cancer incidence over nearly 40 years stacked up against air quality in different areas. “The main takeaway is that there is a relationship between incidence of lung cancer and specific environmental pollutants,” said lead author Dr. Hollis Hutchings, a thoracic surgery research resident at Detroit’s Henry Ford Health. Hutchings and her team reviewed data gathered between 1985 and 2018 by the Michigan Cancer Registry. Over that period, nearly 59,000 new cases of lung cancer were diagnosed in Wayne County. Thirty-seven percent of patients identified as members of a racial minority (average age, 67.8 years). The air pollution status of different areas of the county was then gleaned from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data collected between 1980 and 2018. On the positive side, most markers of air pollution (though not all) across Wayne County did improve over that time. But the three areas with the highest rates of lung…  read on >  read on >

Pollutants produced by the U.S. oil and gas industry cause thousands of deaths and cost the country tens of billions in health care expenses, a new study reports. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), fine particulate matter and ozone all contribute to air pollution, and all are emitted as part of oil and gas production, the researchers said. The new study estimates that the oil and gas industry contributed to 7,500 excess deaths, 410,000 asthma attacks and 2,200 new cases of childhood asthma across the United States in 2016. All told, oil and gas production cost the United States $77 billion annually in health care damages, when factoring in related heart and lung hospitalizations, adverse pregnancy outcomes and other illnesses. That total cost is three times the estimated climate impact costs of methane emissions from oil and gas operations. “These substantial impacts from oil and gas production show that there are serious consequences across the full life cycle of oil and gas, from ‘well to wheels,’ ‘well to power plant’ and ‘well to furnace,’” said co-researcher Jonathan Buonocore, an assistant professor of environmental health at the Boston University School of Public Health. “The health impacts are not just from the combustion of oil and gas,” Buonocore added in a university news release. “In order for energy, air quality and decarbonization policies to successfully protect health, they need to…  read on >  read on >

The key to a happier and longer marriage may be pooling your money. Researchers found that couples with joint bank accounts had better relationships, fought less about money and felt better about how their household finances were handled. “When we surveyed people of varying relationship lengths, those who had merged accounts reported higher levels of communality within their marriage compared to people with separate accounts, or even those who partially merged their finances,” said Jenny Olson, an assistant professor of marketing at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. “They frequently told us they felt more like they were ‘in this together.’” The authors recruited 230 newlyweds or engaged couples, following them for two years in their early married life. Each of them began the study with separate bank accounts but consented to potentially changing their financial arrangements. Study participants had a mean age of 28. None had been previously married. About 75% were white and 12% were Black. One-third of participants had a bachelor’s degree and a median household income of $50,000. The couples had known each other an average of five years and had been romantically involved for an average of three years. About 10% had children. While some couples were randomly assigned to keep their separate bank accounts, others were told to open a joint bank account instead. A third group was allowed…  read on >  read on >