We can’t say that modern life is kind to our lungs. The air we breathe is no longer really pure and when pollution is not enough, tobacco takes care of the rest. Fortunately our lungs benefit from a sophisticated defense system, but the resources of which will dwindle slowly over the years. We can say that like the rest of the body, the lungs age and this is a fairly recent notion.
I’ll give you a picture first. You learned at school that at the very end of the lungs there are alveoli. They look like small flowers and allow the air breathed by our lungs to oxygenate our blood. Well if we unfold all these flowers, the surface of our two lungs is the equivalent of a tennis court! The miracle of a part of our life is in this formidable surface of exchange. Imagine that the tennis court becomes a ping-pong table – this is what happens with aging – and the game is obviously not the same.
You will understand that we do not all age the same way, especially when it comes to the lungs, and you will probably not be surprised if I tell you that tobacco consumption accelerates this aging process and amplifies its effects. Smoking leads to the appearance of more severe lesions with more serious consequences. The lungs then begin a process of premature aging leading to the development of serious complications, one of the main ones being a form of fatal bronchitis.
Today, the age of the arteries, the age of the skin, the age of the brain are concepts understood by all. Lung age is a less developed concept. However, the premature aging of the lungs is indicative of the harmful effects of tobacco, which is a real factor in pulmonary senescence.
How to assess the age of the lungs? It is up to your doctor to do it, very simply, quickly and painlessly, from the measurement of your breath. This measurement allows you to assess the degree of obstruction in your bronchi by measuring the amount of air that comes out of the lungs in one second of exhalation.
It is a very simple method, I repeat, which can accelerate the awareness of smokers, before it is too late.
In short: you have to measure your breath as well as your blood pressure, pulse or weight.
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