(Reuters) - U.S. hospitals are ripping out wall-mounted toilets and replacing them with floor models to better support obese patients. The Federal Transit Administration wants buses to be tested for the impact of heavier riders on steering and braking. Cars are burning nearly a billion gallons of gasoline more a year than if passengers weighed what they did in 1960.

The nation's rising rate of obesity has been well-chronicled. But businesses, governments and individuals are only now coming to grips with the costs of those extra pounds, many of which are even greater than believed only a few years ago: The additional medical spending due to obesity is double previous estimates and exceeds even those of smoking, a new study shows.

Many of those costs have dollar signs in front of them, such as the higher health insurance premiums everyone pays to cover those extra medical costs. Other changes, often cost-neutral, are coming to the built environment in the form of wider seats in public places from sports stadiums to bus stops.

The startling economic costs of obesity, often borne by the non-obese, could become the epidemic's second-hand smoke. Only when scientists discovered that nonsmokers were developing lung cancer and other diseases from breathing smoke-filled air did policymakers get serious about fighting the habit, in particular by establishing nonsmoking zones. The costs that smoking added to Medicaid also spurred action. Now, as economists put a price tag on sky-high body mass indexes (BMIs), policymakers as well as the private sector are mobilizing to find solutions to the obesity epidemic.

"As committee chairmen, Cabinet secretaries, the head of Medicare and health officials see these really high costs, they are more interested in knowing, 'what policy knob can I turn to stop this hemorrhage?'" said Michael O'Grady of the National Opinion Research Center, co-author of a new report for the Campaign to End Obesity, which brings together representatives from business, academia and the public health community to work with policymakers on the issue.

The U.S. health care reform law of 2010 allows employers to charge obese workers 30 percent to 50 percent more for health insurance if they decline to participate in a qualified wellness program. The law also includes carrots and celery sticks, so to speak, to persuade Medicare and Medicaid enrollees to see a primary care physician about losing weight, and funds community demonstration programs for weight loss.

Such measures do not sit well with all obese Americans. Advocacy groups formed to "end size discrimination" argue that it is possible to be healthy "at every size," taking issue with the findings that obesity necessarily comes with added medical costs.

The reason for denominating the costs of obesity in dollars is not to stigmatize plus-size Americans even further. Rather, the goal is to allow public health officials as well as employers to break out their calculators and see whether programs to prevent or reverse obesity are worth it.

LOST PRODUCTIVITY

The percentage of Americans who are obese (with a BMI of 30 or higher) has tripled since 1960, to 34 percent, while the incidence of extreme or "morbid" obesity (BMI above 40) has risen sixfold, to 6 percent. The percentage of overweight Americans (BMI of 25 to 29.9) has held steady: It was 34 percent in 2008 and 32 percent in 1961. What seems to have happened is that for every healthy-weight person who "graduated" into overweight, an overweight person graduated into obesity.

Because obesity raises the risk of a host of medical conditions, from heart disease to chronic pain, the obese are absent from work more often than people of healthy weight. The most obese men take 5.9 more sick days a year; the most obese women, 9.4 days more. Obesity-related absenteeism costs employers as much as $6.4 billion a year, health economists led by Eric Finkelstein of Duke University calculated.

Even when poor health doesn't keep obese workers home, it can cut into productivity, as they grapple with pain or shortness of breath or other obstacles to working all-out. Such obesity-related "presenteeism," said Finkelstein, is also expensive. The very obese lose one month of productive work per year, costing employers an average of $3,792 per very obese male worker and $3,037 per female. Total annual cost of presenteeism due to obesity: $30 billion.

Decreased productivity can reduce wages, as employers penalize less productive workers. Obesity hits workers' pocketbooks indirectly, too: Numerous studies have shown that the obese are less likely to be hired and promoted than their svelte peers are. Women in particular bear the brunt of that, earning about 11 percent less than women of healthy weight, health economist John Cawley of Cornell University found. At the average weekly U.S. wage of $669 in 2010, that's a $76 weekly obesity tax.

MORE DOCTORS, MORE PILLS

The medical costs of obesity have long been the focus of health economists. A just-published analysis finds that it raises those costs more than thought.

Obese men rack up an additional $1,152 a year in medical spending, especially for hospitalizations and prescription drugs, Cawley and Chad Meyerhoefer of Lehigh University reported in January in the Journal of Health Economics. Obese women account for an extra $3,613 a year. Using data from 9,852 men (average BMI: 28) and 13,837 women (average BMI: 27) ages 20 to 64, among whom 28 percent were obese, the researchers found even higher costs among the uninsured: annual medical spending for an obese person was $3,271 compared with $512 for the non-obese.

Nationally, that comes to $190 billion a year in additional medical spending as a result of obesity, calculated Cawley, or 20.6 percent of U.S. health care expenditures.

That is double recent estimates, reflecting more precise methodology. The new analysis corrected for people's tendency to low-ball their weight, for instance, and compared obesity with non-obesity (healthy weight and overweight) rather than just to healthy weight. Because the merely overweight do not incur many additional medical costs, grouping the overweight with the obese underestimates the costs of obesity.

Contrary to the media's idealization of slimness, medical spending for men is about the same for BMIs of 26 to 35. For women, the uptick starts at a BMI of 25. In men more than women, high BMIs can reflect extra muscle as well as fat, so it is possible to be healthy even with an overweight BMI. "A man with a BMI of 28 might be very fit," said Cawley. "Where healthcare costs really take off is in the morbidly obese."

Those extra medical costs are partly born by the non-obese, in the form of higher taxes to support Medicaid and higher health insurance premiums. Obese women raise such "third party" expenditures $3,220 a year each; obese men, $967 a year, Cawley and Meyerhoefer found.

One recent surprise is the discovery that the costs of obesity exceed those of smoking. In a paper published in March, scientists at the Mayo Clinic toted up the exact medical costs of 30,529 Mayo employees, adult dependents, and retirees over several years.

"Smoking added about 20 percent a year to medical costs," said Mayo's James Naessens. "Obesity was similar, but morbid obesity increased those costs by 50 percent a year. There really is an economic justification for employers to offer programs to help the very obese lose weight."

LIVING LARGE, BUT NOT DYING YOUNG

For years researchers suspected that the higher medical costs of obesity might be offset by the possibility that the obese would die young, and thus never rack up spending for nursing homes, Alzheimer's care, and other pricey items.

That's what happens to smokers. While they do incur higher medical costs than nonsmokers in any given year, their lifetime drain on public and private dollars is less because they die sooner. "Smokers die early enough that they save Social Security, private pensions, and Medicare" trillions of dollars, said Duke's Finkelstein. "But mortality isn't that much higher among the obese."

Beta blockers for heart disease, diabetes drugs, and other treatments are keeping the obese alive longer, with the result that they incur astronomically high medical expenses in old age just like their slimmer peers.

Some costs of obesity reflect basic physics. It requires twice as much energy to move 250 pounds than 125 pounds. As a result, a vehicle burns more gasoline carrying heavier passengers than lighter ones.

"Growing obesity rates increase fuel consumption," said engineer Sheldon Jacobson of the University of Illinois. How much? An additional 938 million gallons of gasoline each year due to overweight and obesity in the United States, or 0.8 percent, he calculated. That's $4 billion extra.

Not all the changes spurred by the prevalence of obesity come with a price tag. Train cars New Jersey Transit ordered from Bombardier have seats 2.2 inches wider than current cars, at 19.75 inches, said spokesman John Durso, giving everyone a more comfortable commute. (There will also be more seats per car because the new ones are double-deckers.)

The built environment generally is changing to accommodate larger Americans. New York's commuter trains are considering new cars with seats able to hold 400 pounds. Blue Bird is widening the front doors on its school buses so wider kids can fit. And at both the new Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, seats are wider than their predecessors by 1 to 2 inches.

The new performance testing proposed by transit officials for buses, assuming an average passenger weight of 175 instead of 150 pounds, arise from concerns that heavier passengers might pose a safety threat. If too much weight is behind the rear axle, a bus can lose steering. And every additional pound increases a moving vehicle's momentum, requiring more force to stop and thereby putting greater demands on brakes. Manufacturers have told the FTA the proposal will require them to upgrade several components.

Hospitals, too, are adapting to larger patients. The University of Alabama at Birmingham's hospital, the nation's fourth largest, has widened doors, replaced wall-mounted toilets with floor models able to hold 250 pounds or more, and bought plus-size wheelchairs (twice the price of regulars) as well as mini-cranes to hoist obese patients out of bed.

The additional spending due to obesity doesn't fall into a black hole, of course. It contributes to overall economic activity and thus to gross domestic product. But not all spending is created equal.

"Yes, a heart attack will generate economic activity, since the surgeon and hospital get paid, but not in a good way," said Murray Ross, vice president of Kaiser Permanente's Institute for Health Policy. "If we avoided that heart attack we could have put the money to better use, such as in education or investments in clean energy."

The books on obesity remain open. The latest entry: An obese man is 64 percent less likely to be arrested for a crime than a healthy man. Researchers have yet to run the numbers on what that might save.(Reuters) - U.S. hospitals are ripping out wall-mounted toilets and replacing them with floor models to better support obese patients. The Federal Transit Administration wants buses to be tested for the impact of heavier riders on steering and braking. Cars are burning nearly a billion gallons of gasoline more a year than if passengers weighed what they did in 1960.

The nation's rising rate of obesity has been well-chronicled. But businesses, governments and individuals are only now coming to grips with the costs of those extra pounds, many of which are even greater than believed only a few years ago: The additional medical spending due to obesity is double previous estimates and exceeds even those of smoking, a new study shows.

Many of those costs have dollar signs in front of them, such as the higher health insurance premiums everyone pays to cover those extra medical costs. Other changes, often cost-neutral, are coming to the built environment in the form of wider seats in public places from sports stadiums to bus stops.

The startling economic costs of obesity, often borne by the non-obese, could become the epidemic's second-hand smoke. Only when scientists discovered that nonsmokers were developing lung cancer and other diseases from breathing smoke-filled air did policymakers get serious about fighting the habit, in particular by establishing nonsmoking zones. The costs that smoking added to Medicaid also spurred action. Now, as economists put a price tag on sky-high body mass indexes (BMIs), policymakers as well as the private sector are mobilizing to find solutions to the obesity epidemic.

"As committee chairmen, Cabinet secretaries, the head of Medicare and health officials see these really high costs, they are more interested in knowing, 'what policy knob can I turn to stop this hemorrhage?'" said Michael O'Grady of the National Opinion Research Center, co-author of a new report for the Campaign to End Obesity, which brings together representatives from business, academia and the public health community to work with policymakers on the issue.

The U.S. health care reform law of 2010 allows employers to charge obese workers 30 percent to 50 percent more for health insurance if they decline to participate in a qualified wellness program. The law also includes carrots and celery sticks, so to speak, to persuade Medicare and Medicaid enrollees to see a primary care physician about losing weight, and funds community demonstration programs for weight loss.

Such measures do not sit well with all obese Americans. Advocacy groups formed to "end size discrimination" argue that it is possible to be healthy "at every size," taking issue with the findings that obesity necessarily comes with added medical costs.

The reason for denominating the costs of obesity in dollars is not to stigmatize plus-size Americans even further. Rather, the goal is to allow public health officials as well as employers to break out their calculators and see whether programs to prevent or reverse obesity are worth it.

LOST PRODUCTIVITY

The percentage of Americans who are obese (with a BMI of 30 or higher) has tripled since 1960, to 34 percent, while the incidence of extreme or "morbid" obesity (BMI above 40) has risen sixfold, to 6 percent. The percentage of overweight Americans (BMI of 25 to 29.9) has held steady: It was 34 percent in 2008 and 32 percent in 1961. What seems to have happened is that for every healthy-weight person who "graduated" into overweight, an overweight person graduated into obesity.

Because obesity raises the risk of a host of medical conditions, from heart disease to chronic pain, the obese are absent from work more often than people of healthy weight. The most obese men take 5.9 more sick days a year; the most obese women, 9.4 days more. Obesity-related absenteeism costs employers as much as $6.4 billion a year, health economists led by Eric Finkelstein of Duke University calculated.

Even when poor health doesn't keep obese workers home, it can cut into productivity, as they grapple with pain or shortness of breath or other obstacles to working all-out. Such obesity-related "presenteeism," said Finkelstein, is also expensive. The very obese lose one month of productive work per year, costing employers an average of $3,792 per very obese male worker and $3,037 per female. Total annual cost of presenteeism due to obesity: $30 billion.

Decreased productivity can reduce wages, as employers penalize less productive workers. Obesity hits workers' pocketbooks indirectly, too: Numerous studies have shown that the obese are less likely to be hired and promoted than their svelte peers are. Women in particular bear the brunt of that, earning about 11 percent less than women of healthy weight, health economist John Cawley of Cornell University found. At the average weekly U.S. wage of $669 in 2010, that's a $76 weekly obesity tax.

MORE DOCTORS, MORE PILLS

The medical costs of obesity have long been the focus of health economists. A just-published analysis finds that it raises those costs more than thought.

Obese men rack up an additional $1,152 a year in medical spending, especially for hospitalizations and prescription drugs, Cawley and Chad Meyerhoefer of Lehigh University reported in January in the Journal of Health Economics. Obese women account for an extra $3,613 a year. Using data from 9,852 men (average BMI: 28) and 13,837 women (average BMI: 27) ages 20 to 64, among whom 28 percent were obese, the researchers found even higher costs among the uninsured: annual medical spending for an obese person was $3,271 compared with $512 for the non-obese.

Nationally, that comes to $190 billion a year in additional medical spending as a result of obesity, calculated Cawley, or 20.6 percent of U.S. health care expenditures.

That is double recent estimates, reflecting more precise methodology. The new analysis corrected for people's tendency to low-ball their weight, for instance, and compared obesity with non-obesity (healthy weight and overweight) rather than just to healthy weight. Because the merely overweight do not incur many additional medical costs, grouping the overweight with the obese underestimates the costs of obesity.

Contrary to the media's idealization of slimness, medical spending for men is about the same for BMIs of 26 to 35. For women, the uptick starts at a BMI of 25. In men more than women, high BMIs can reflect extra muscle as well as fat, so it is possible to be healthy even with an overweight BMI. "A man with a BMI of 28 might be very fit," said Cawley. "Where healthcare costs really take off is in the morbidly obese."

Those extra medical costs are partly born by the non-obese, in the form of higher taxes to support Medicaid and higher health insurance premiums. Obese women raise such "third party" expenditures $3,220 a year each; obese men, $967 a year, Cawley and Meyerhoefer found.

One recent surprise is the discovery that the costs of obesity exceed those of smoking. In a paper published in March, scientists at the Mayo Clinic toted up the exact medical costs of 30,529 Mayo employees, adult dependents, and retirees over several years.

"Smoking added about 20 percent a year to medical costs," said Mayo's James Naessens. "Obesity was similar, but morbid obesity increased those costs by 50 percent a year. There really is an economic justification for employers to offer programs to help the very obese lose weight."

LIVING LARGE, BUT NOT DYING YOUNG

For years researchers suspected that the higher medical costs of obesity might be offset by the possibility that the obese would die young, and thus never rack up spending for nursing homes, Alzheimer's care, and other pricey items.

That's what happens to smokers. While they do incur higher medical costs than nonsmokers in any given year, their lifetime drain on public and private dollars is less because they die sooner. "Smokers die early enough that they save Social Security, private pensions, and Medicare" trillions of dollars, said Duke's Finkelstein. "But mortality isn't that much higher among the obese."

Beta blockers for heart disease, diabetes drugs, and other treatments are keeping the obese alive longer, with the result that they incur astronomically high medical expenses in old age just like their slimmer peers.

Some costs of obesity reflect basic physics. It requires twice as much energy to move 250 pounds than 125 pounds. As a result, a vehicle burns more gasoline carrying heavier passengers than lighter ones.

"Growing obesity rates increase fuel consumption," said engineer Sheldon Jacobson of the University of Illinois. How much? An additional 938 million gallons of gasoline each year due to overweight and obesity in the United States, or 0.8 percent, he calculated. That's $4 billion extra.

Not all the changes spurred by the prevalence of obesity come with a price tag. Train cars New Jersey Transit ordered from Bombardier have seats 2.2 inches wider than current cars, at 19.75 inches, said spokesman John Durso, giving everyone a more comfortable commute. (There will also be more seats per car because the new ones are double-deckers.)

The built environment generally is changing to accommodate larger Americans. New York's commuter trains are considering new cars with seats able to hold 400 pounds. Blue Bird is widening the front doors on its school buses so wider kids can fit. And at both the new Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, seats are wider than their predecessors by 1 to 2 inches.

The new performance testing proposed by transit officials for buses, assuming an average passenger weight of 175 instead of 150 pounds, arise from concerns that heavier passengers might pose a safety threat. If too much weight is behind the rear axle, a bus can lose steering. And every additional pound increases a moving vehicle's momentum, requiring more force to stop and thereby putting greater demands on brakes. Manufacturers have told the FTA the proposal will require them to upgrade several components.

Hospitals, too, are adapting to larger patients. The University of Alabama at Birmingham's hospital, the nation's fourth largest, has widened doors, replaced wall-mounted toilets with floor models able to hold 250 pounds or more, and bought plus-size wheelchairs (twice the price of regulars) as well as mini-cranes to hoist obese patients out of bed.

The additional spending due to obesity doesn't fall into a black hole, of course. It contributes to overall economic activity and thus to gross domestic product. But not all spending is created equal.

"Yes, a heart attack will generate economic activity, since the surgeon and hospital get paid, but not in a good way," said Murray Ross, vice president of Kaiser Permanente's Institute for Health Policy. "If we avoided that heart attack we could have put the money to better use, such as in education or investments in clean energy."

The books on obesity remain open. The latest entry: An obese man is 64 percent less likely to be arrested for a crime than a healthy man. Researchers have yet to run the numbers on what that might save.

By: Sharon Begley

Orginal Article: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/30/us-obesity-idUSBRE83T0C820120430

Food is an important part of many holidays, celebrations, family and cultural traditions. In fact, special occasions often center around food. As a result, many people gain a little (or a lot) of weight between Thanksgiving and the New Year.

What’s to blame? Perhaps it’s all the delicious treats available during the holiday season or the pressure from family, friends, and co-workers to overeat. Maybe it’s increased emotional eating (whether it be from holiday stress or holiday joy) or more laxity with eating and physical activity regimens in anticipation of the strict “new diet and exercise plan” you’re going to start January 1^st.

Regardless of the reasons, it is not necessary to avoid holiday festivities in an attempt to maintain your weight. Consider these 10 tips for maintaining a healthy, balanced lifestyle while fully enjoying the holiday season!

1. Focus on weight maintenance vs. weight loss during the holidays. If you are currently overweight and want to lose weight, this may not be the time to do it. Maintenance of your present weight is a good goal during the holiday season. Don’t set yourself up for failure by making unrealistic goals for yourself.

2. Plan on NOT dieting after the New Year. Anticipation of food restriction sets you up for binge-type eating over the holidays. Besides, restrictive diets don’t work in the long run. They increase your loss of lean body mass vs. fat, slow down your metabolism, increase anxiety, depression, food preoccupation, and binge eating, and make weight re-gain more likely. Dieting is clearly not the answer for your New Year’s resolution; positive and long-term LIFESTYLE CHANGES are!

3. Be physically active in some way most days of the week. Often, our busy holiday schedules (or lack of structured schedules) take us off our exercise routines. Physical activity, especially aerobic activities (like brisk walking, jogging, bicycling, roller blading, and swimming) can help relieve stress, regulate appetite, and burn up extra calories from holiday eating.

4. Don’t skip meals. It is not a good idea to arrive at a party famished. Not only are you more likely to overeat, but you are also less likely to limit the higher fat and higher calorie good available. Don’t skip meals in anticipation of “saving room for the next meal”. You could also have a healthy snack before you go to take the edge off, such as a piece of fruit, a small carton of light yogurt, or string cheese.

5. Make a plan. If you are concerned about overeating, think about which foods are really special to you (those you really want to eat) vs. those that you could probably do without. Contemplate your personal triggers to overeat and how can you minimize them. Once you’ve thought about all these things, make a plan of action. It’s much easier to deal with a difficult social eating situation if you’ve already planned for it.

6. Take steps to minimize recreation eating. While some foods are more calorie-dense than others, no food will make you gain weight unless you eat too much of it. At parties and holiday dinners, we tend to eat (or keep eating) beyond our body’s physical hunger simply because good is there and eating is a ‘social thing.” To avoid recreation eating, consciously make one plate of the foods you really want. Eat it slowly—enjoying and savoring every tasty bite. Then, when you’re done, pop a mint or a stick of gum in your mouth, get a tall glass of water and sip on it throughout the night, or position yourself away from the buffet table or good trays to keep yourself from overeating.

7. Reduce the fat in holiday recipes. There are plenty of low fat and low calorie substitutes that are amazingly tasty. Try using applesauce in place of oil your favorite holiday breads;; use egg substitutes in place of whole eggs; try plain nonfat yogurt in place of sour cream. Magazines are full of reduced calorie and reduced fat holiday recipes. Give them a try, and share your cooking creations with friends and family

8. Choose your beverages wisely. Alcohol is high in calories. Liquors, sweet wines and sweet mixed drinks contain 150-450 calories per glass. By contrast, water and diet sodas are calorie-free. If you choose to drink alcohol, select light wines and beers, and use non-alcoholic mixers such as water and diet soda. Limit your intake to 1 or 2 alcoholic drinks per occasion. Also, be aware of the extra calories in soda, fruit punch, and egg nog.

9. Enjoy good friends and family. Although food can be a big part of the season, it doesn’t have to be the focus. Holidays are a time to reunite with good friends and family, to share laughter and cheer, to celebrate and to give thanks. Focus more on these other holiday pleasures, in addition to the tastes of holiday foods. The important thing to remember is balance and moderation. It’s OK to eat too much once in a while. Just relax, enjoy the holidays, and remember what the season is all about.

10. Maintain perspective: Overeating one day won’t make or break your eating plan. And it certainly won’t make you gain weight! It takes many days of overeating to gain weight. If you over-indulge at a holiday meal, put it behind you. Return to your usual eating plan the next day without guilt or despair.

Happy Holidays!

Health and wellness tips for your work, home and life—brought to you by the insurance specialists at HUB International Midwest

Winter

The winter months often provide some relief for allergy sufferers, as the outdoor air is cool and free of pollen. However, if you have allergies, you need to make sure that the air inside your house is clean as well. Be sure to:

·   Keep firewood outside.

·   Clean heating ducts and air conditioning filters.

·   Bathe house pets regularly if dander is a problem.

·   Keep your face covered when out in the cold. Going from cold outside air to warm indoor air can trigger asthma.

Spring

Mold growth blooms indoors and outdoors with spring rains. As flowers, trees, weeds and grasses begin to blossom, allergies will follow. Spring-cleaning activities can stir up dust mites, so be sure to:

·   Wash your bedding every week in hot water to help keep pollen under control.

·   Wash your hair before going to bed, since pollen can accumulate in your hair.

·   Wear an inexpensive painter’s mask and gloves when cleaning, vacuuming or painting to limit dust and chemical inhalation, and skin exposure.

·   Vacuum twice a week.

·   Limit the number of throw rugs in your home to reduce dust and mold.

·   Make sure the rugs you do have are washable.

·   Change air conditioning and heating air filters often.

Summer

Warm temperatures and high humidity can put a strain on seasonal allergy and asthma sufferers. Summer is the peak time for some types of pollen, smog and even mold:

·   Stay indoors between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m., when outdoor pollen counts tend to be highest.

·   Be careful when going from extreme outdoor heat to air conditioning. The temperature change can trigger an asthma attack.

·   Wear a mask when you mow the lawn or when around freshly-cut grass. Afterward, take a shower, wash your hair and change clothes.

·   Dry laundry inside instead of on an outside clothesline.

·   Check your yard for allergens, as well as other irritants such as oak, birch, cedar and cottonwood trees; weeds such as nettle or ragweed can also trigger allergies.

·   Wear shoes, long pants and long sleeves if allergic to bee stings.

·   Do not wear scented deodorants, hair products or perfumes when outdoors.

Fall

Cooler temperatures are ideal for planting flowers and trees, but be sure to plant those that produce less pollen, such as fir, pine, dogwood, azaleas, tulips, irises and pansies.

·   Wear a mask while raking leaves or when working with mulch or hay.

·   Use a dehumidifier in your basement to deter mold.

·   Clean your dehumidifier frequently.

·  Wash bathroom tiles and shower curtains with mold-killing products.

November is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) awareness month, and it’s a time to make sure we know all the facts about who suffers from this condition. In recent years, the incidence of COPD has increased steadily in women. COPD kills more women than breast cancer and diabetes combined. Women who smoke are 13 times more likely to die from COPD than non-smokers. Additionally, women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with chronic bronchitis as men, and the disease kills women at almost double the rate in some states.

COPD is a progressive lung disease that makes it increasingly difficult to breathe. It is the third leading cause of death in the country — 24 million people in the U.S. have the disease, but 12 million do not know they have it. While COPD is a growing health crisis, certain states are seeing a higher prevalence of the disease. In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published the first ever state-by-state COPD prevalence rates based on the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). It was shown that Kentucky, Alabama and Tennessee are among the highest in the nation, all having over an 8-percent diagnosis rate in their adult population.

Signs of COPD include chronic cough, wheezing, chest tightness and shortness of breath. People often misread these symptoms as signs of aging or being out of shape. This is a common mistake, because COPD mostly occurs in people 40 years of age and older, just as middle age starts to settle in. People may also connect weight gain or inactivity with shortness of breath. Yet, COPD can develop for years without any noticeable signs of shortness of breath.

There is a correlation between former smokers and COPD. Not everyone who smokes develops COPD, but most of the individuals who have COPD (about 90 percent) have smoked. Heavy or long-term contact with secondhand smoke or other lung irritants in the home, such as organic cooking fuel, may also cause COPD.

Environmental factors may also contribute to COPD. Long-term exposure to harmful pollutants in the workplace and exposure to dust or fumes can be a factor. Even if an individual has never smoked or been exposed to pollutants for an extended period of time, they can still develop COPD.

Take Action

A simple breathing test, called spirometry, may be ordered by your healthcare provider to test you for COPD, especially if you are a current or former smoker, have been exposed to harmful lung irritants for a long period of time, or have a history of COPD in your family.

Making lifestyle changes is one of the best ways to manage a COPD diagnosis. Quitting smoking and avoiding secondhand smoke, which can be just as dangerous as smoking, are two ways to help slow the progression of the disease. Also avoiding lung irritants, like dust, air pollution, paint sprays, chemical fumes and other airborne irritants will help symptoms from worsening.

At times, individuals who live with COPD experience acute exacerbations — a flare up or episode when breathing gets worse than usual and can lead to infection. Exacerbations can be serious, prompting a call to the physician, visit to the emergency room, or overnight stay in the hospital.  Because exacerbations can cause the disease to progress faster, it’s important to help prevent them as much as possible. This means learning to recognize early warning signs and working with your physician to determine the best treatment.

There are many different therapies available for the treatment of COPD including medication and various breathing techniques.  Pulmonary rehabilitation programs are also very beneficial and can help you learn to breathe – and function – at the highest level possible.

Finally, get help and support by calling the C.O.P.D. Information Line at 1-866-316-COPD (2673). You can connect with the COPD community and talk to others who are living well with many of the same challenges you face. If you are diagnosed with COPD, seriously consider making changes in your life. Talk with your doctor about what you can do to breathe better and improve your ability to take part in your usual activities.

By: John W. Walsh, President and Co-Founder of the COPD Foundation

Orginal Article: http://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/health-answers/copd-no-longer-a-mans-disease/