Facts About Lung Disease

Imagine having a disease with 45 letters in the name. It’s the longest word in the dictionary, and it’s said to be a fictitious name, a hoax; but, in fact, it is a real disease. It’s a form of the illness pneumoconiosis which is caused by inhaling the fine silica dust of volcanoes.

We are much more familiar with other, more common inhalation-caused lung diseases such as asbestosis, silicosis, mesothelioma, pulmonary fibrosis, farmer’s lung, black lung, COPD, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, asthma, berylliosis and other diseases caused by the inhalation of substances found in stones, sand, silica, talc, metals, plastics, coal, wood particles, fibers of cloth, bird droppings, mice droppings, flour, cooking oils, smoke, gasses and other substances.

These diseases are sometimes called occupational lung diseases, chemically-induced lung diseases or environmental lung disease. Whatever the name or the cause of these devastating lung problems, it most often is a very serious, chronic, extremely miserable and often terminal illness.

Here’s something I bet you didn’t know. A study has found that Turkish workers who sandblast jeans to give them that popular worn-look are developing an incurable lung disease. In the study, they found that out of 60 sandblasters working in Istanbul, Turkey, 44 of them had an accelerated form of silicosis.

Another interesting fact that I uncovered was that women who regularly take vitamin E supplements have a reduced risk of developing COPD (a 10% reduction in women who took 600 IU of vitamin E every other day). Unfortunately, this is limited to women. In men, it showed no effect.

Some other facts I learned were: (1) A diet rich in fiber from whole grains seemed to help lower lung disease risk. (2) Lung disease, especially the onset of lung serious lung disease in middle age, appears to be genetic even without a family history of such illnesses in the background. (3) Viagra, which is normally used for sexual dysfunction in men, brings some improvement of symptoms to some lung disease patients.

And, lastly, I found an article, just written on May 18, 2010, entitled: Unknown Respiratory Disease Affecting Iceland’s Horses. A Veterinary Officer for Horse Diseases at Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST), Sigria ur Bjornsdottir, DMV, PhD stated, ” Most known epidemics have been ruled out, as well as any connection to the ash and gases emitted by the April 14 eruption of Eyjafjallajokull. I can confirm that equine influenza, equine herpesvirus, and rhinoviruses have been excluded, and it has no relation to the volcanic eruption“.

The article goes on to say: “The infection has spread rapidly since the first cases were reported in early April, leading veterinarians to believe this is a new disease to Iceland, according to the MAST fact sheet. This suggests that the entire horse population is sensitive to infection, and therefore there is probably a new infectious agent involved in this country”

Since Eyjafjallajokull first erupted on March 22, 2010, I wonder about this MAST fact sheet. It certainly sounds like an outbreak of Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis to me…

Sources:

http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/videos/default.htm

http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=16368

　

　

　The article is about a respiratory disease affecting the Iceland horses characterized by a dry cough, weakness, nasal drainage, shortness of breath, and sometimes, fever. They say the source of the infection has not yet been identified. http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/health-well-being/blogs/distressed-jeans-and-lung-disease