EDITORIAL
Ageing, smoking and oxidative stress
Ageing, smoking and oxidative stress
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr J F Donohue
Professor of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary Diseases and Critical Care Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7020, USA; jdonohue@med.unc.edu
The complex relationship between age, oxidative stress, duration of smoking cessation, and inflammatory markers
Keywords: bronchoalveolar lavage; protein carbonyls; antioxidant; glutathione; smoking; ageing
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the fifth leading cause of death worldwide and further increases in its prevalence and mortality are expected in the coming decades.1 Continued exposure to tobacco promotes a more rapid decline in lung function and, if exposure is stopped, the disease may still progress due to ageing and persistence of inflammation. The paper by Nagai et al2 in this issue of Thorax adds to the growing body of evidence about damage from oxidative stress due to cigarette smoking. Changes can persist even after the last cigarette is extinguished. The effects are more noticeable in older smokers because of long term exposure to toxic gases and particles as they concurrently age. Oxidised glutathione associated with excessive protein carbonylation accumulates in the lungs of older smokers, raising the possibility that antioxidant defences could be overwhelmed.
The lungs are exposed continuously to oxidants
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