Tobacco.org

Genetic Factors In Smoking Also Increase Risk Of Chronic Bronchitis 

Smoking is a known risk factor for respiratory diseases like chronic bronchitis, but genes also play a significant role in its development, according to researchers in Sweden, who studied more than 40,000 Swedish twins to determine the extent to which behavior, environment and genes each play a role ion the development of chronic bronchitis.

"[S]moking behavior has a known genetic component and smoking is a primary risk factor for chronic bronchitis," wrote Jenny Hallberg, of the Department of Public Health Sciences at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. Hereditability accounted for 40 percent of the risk for chronic bronchitis, but, interestingly, 14 percent of the genetic risk was also linked to a genetic predisposition to smoke, whether or not the individual actually smoked. Chronic bronchitis along with emphysema account for most cases of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD.

The researchers analyzed data from the Screening Across Lifespan Twin (SALT) study in Sweden, which surveyed all known living twins in Sweden born in 1958 or earlier.

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