Genetic link between smoking and lung disease

 At Queen’s Medical Centre at the University of Nottingham, Prof. Ian Hall has created a study to find out what causes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The goal was to study how genetics coincide with airflow obstruction and smoking behavior. The team looked at how genetics is involved with the smoking behaviors and the “lung phenotypes.” There was evidence that both smokers and nonsmokers had lung deficits caused by genetics. This lead them to believe that smoking and genetics are independent variables causing COPD.

The study itself varied from people who had never smoked before to heavy smokers. These people were also chosen whether they had high or low forced expiratory volume (how much air a person can exhale during a forced breath and is captured through spirometry). The FEV was studied to determine if the different FEV variations were related to genetic causes of different phenotypes. Using a new genotyping array, the scientists could compare lung health and smoking behavior with different genetic variations for the entire human genome.

The results showed six independent genetic variants with both lung health and COPD, but they also found genetic variants related with COPD in people who had never smoked. The fact that the team found the same sequence of a genome in both smokers and non smokers shows how variable gene regulation is. This study sheds light on airflow obstruction, COPD, and tobacco addiction and also how evident it is that genetic build can cause airflow obstruction whether they smoke or not. The researchers do think that further research should be done with the genetic factors to expand on the current study, they also think that this study thus will lead to prevention and treatment with COPD and hopefully help people stop smoking in the long run. 
I think this is super important because so many people are affected by COPD and it is important to know how it is caused. Even if you don't smoke you could still be at risk from gene variation, this could be from second hand smoke, the main goal is to stop smoking and increase lung health.

For more on this study click here! 
For more on how smoking can cause lung diseases click here!