Risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in healthy individuals with high C-reactive protein levels by smoking status: a population-based cohort study in Korea

Assessment of Behavioral Risk Factors in Chronic Obstructive Airway Diseases of the Lung Associated with Metabolic Syndrome

BACKGROUND

Diet and lifestyle play important roles in preventing and improving chronic diseases, and evaluating behavioral risk factors in these pathologies allows for efficient management.

METHODS

A clinical study by screening biochemical parameters and pulmonary function was carried out to evaluate behavioral risk factors in obstructive pulmonary disease associated with metabolic syndrome.

RESULTS

Of the total of 70 patients included in the clinical study, 46 were men and 24 were women (χ2 = 3.9, p = 0.168). Forty-eight patients presented at least three met risk criteria associated with the metabolic syndrome (19 women and 29 men). Regarding the assessment of lung function, only 7 of the patients presented normal spirometry values (χ2 = 75.28, p < 0.001), and the other 63 patients presented with ventilatory dysfunction; most (over 80%) declared that they were smokers or had smoked in the past (χ2 = 5.185, p = 0.075). In terms of body weight, 45 of the patients are overweight or obese, most of them declaring that they do not consume enough vegetable products, they consume large amounts of foods of animal origin (meat, milk, eggs) but also super processed foods (food products type of junk food), do not hydrate properly, and are predominantly sedentary people (54 of the patients do no physical activity at all; χ2 = 2.12, p = 0.713).

CONCLUSION

From the statistical processing of the data, it is noted that insufficient hydration, low consumption of vegetables, increased consumption of hyper-caloric food products rich in additives, sedentary lifestyle, and smoking are the main disruptive behavioral factors that worsen the health status in lung disease associated with the metabolic syndrome. An important conclusion emerging from the study is that the imbalances that aggravate obstructive lung diseases are generated by unhealthy food and an unbalanced lifestyle.

Inflammatory response in human lung cells stimulated with plasma from COPD patients

Background

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a condition resulting from a persistent inflammatory state in the airways even after smoking cessation. Intriguingly, the reasons behind this persistence of the inflammatory influx without smoking exposure have not been fully unraveled. We aimed to explore the hypothesis that systemic inflammation in COPD patients influences lung cell inflammatory response.

Methods

We cultured human lung fibroblast and human airway epithelial cell lines with plasma from COPD patients (four emphysematous-COPD, four asthma-COPD overlap, four chronic bronchitis-COPD, and four bronchiectasis- COPD), and four smokers or ex-smokers without COPD as controls. Non-stimulated cells were used as controls. We measured Interleukine-8 (IL-8), C-reactive protein (CRP) and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) in plasma and culture supernatants by ELISA.

Results

Cells stimulated with plasma from COPD patients and non-COPD smoker subjects produced higher CRP, IL- 8 and MMP-9 levels, an increase for COPD in CRP (p=0.029) in epithelial cells and IL-8 (p=0.039) in fibroblasts and decrease for MMP-9 (p=0.039) in fibroblasts, compared with non-stimulated cells. The response was higher in epithelial cells for IL-8 (p=0.003) and in fibroblasts for MMP-9 (p=0.063). The plasma from chronic bronchitis and bronchiectasis phenotypes induced higher IL-8 in fibroblasts.

Conclusions

Plasma from COPD patients increases the inflammatory response in lung epithelial cells and lung fibroblasts, with a different response depending on the cell type and clinical phenotype.

Sedentary behavior is associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: A generalized propensity score-weighted analysis

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the fourth and third leading cause of death worldwide and in China, respectively. Sedentary behavior has been shown to increase the risk of respiratory disease, such as asthma. However, the relationship between sedentary behavior and COPD is unclear. This study aimed to investigate the association between sedentary behavior and COPD.Data was extracted from the 2018 a large-scale cross-sectional study of Chronic Disease and Lifestyle Population Survey in Sichuan Province of China, in which sedentary behavior and chronic diseases were self-reported according to medical records. The association between sedentary behavior on risk of COPD was estimated using multivariable regression model in non-matching cohorts and generalized propensity score-weighted (GPSW)cohorts, respectively, controlling for potential confounders.Individuals who remained sedentary for more than 7 hours per day were more likely to have COPD than the control group (<3 hours) both in conventional multivariate logistic regression analysis (OR = 2.020, 95%CI: 1.575-2.585, P < .001) and GPSW analysis (OR = 2.381, 95%CI: 1.778-3.188, P < .001). After GPSW and the sensitivity analysis using refined smoking variable further found a dose-effect between sedentary behavior and COPD, with 1.242 (95%CI: 1.006-1.532, P < .05) times risk of COPD in those sedentary behavior of more than 5 hours per day (GPSW) and 1.377 (95%CI: 1.092-1.736, P < .05) times risk in those sedentary behavior above 5 hours per day (sensitivity analysis), comparing with the control group.Sedentary behavior is independently associated with increased risk of COPD, adjusting for other confounders. The findings of this study have important implications for future research and public health guidance. Reducing sedentary time may have a significant role in COPD prevention.