Study: Black women smokers at highest risk

WASHINGTON -- (AP) -- Cigarettes inflict their worst damage on the lungs of black women, according to a study that compared the lung capacity of different groups of two-pack-a-day smokers and nonsmokers.

And while whites who quit smoking regained some breathing capacity, blacks did not -- even 20 years after they quit, said Dr. Henry Glindmeyer, lead author of the study. Both white and black female smokers lost more capacity than did male smokers of either race.

``This may help explain why chronic obstructive lung disease deaths are increasing for women, but not for men,'' Glindmeyer said in an interview. ``Reduced air flow is an indication of obstruction.''

He is presenting a report on the study today at a meeting of the American Lung Association and the American Thoracic Society in New Orleans.

Glindmeyer, a professor at the Tulane University Medical School, said that smoking causes the airways to close slightly due to swelling. Since women have smaller airways than most men, they tend to lose more breathing capacity from this reaction to smoking, he said.

The study involved more than 27,000 industrial workers in 15 states. Both smokers and nonsmokers were given tests with a breath-measuring device called a spirometer. The tests measured the amount of air that is exhaled.

A normal value was established for nonsmokers and compared to the breathing capacity of 40-year-old people who have smoked two packs of cigarettes daily for 20 years. The study also tested the lung capacity of people who once smoked two packs a day and who had quit for at least 20 years. This test was to determine how well the lungs recover from the effects of smoking.

On a test of the amount of air exhaled in one second, the study found that black female smokers had 10 percent less capacity than black women who have never smoked. White women had 8 percent less than their nonsmoking contemporaries; white men had 7 percent less, and black men had 6 percent less.

In the same test comparing former smokers with those who never smoked, black women who once smoked still had 10 percent less capacity than their nonsmoking contemporaries, showing that the former smokers recovered little capacity after quitting.

Glindmeyer said that for reasons not understood, the study showed that black men who had quit smoking for 20 years actually lost lung capacity, slipping from 6 percent less than those who had never smoked to 7 percent less.

White women who were former smokers recovered about half of the lung capacity lost to smoking, moving to within 3.5 percent of the readings for nonsmokers. White men improved to within 3 percent.