More women dying from COPD

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Dec. 14 (UPI) -- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is on the rise among women and in 2000, the number of women dying from COPD surpassed that of men, a U.S. study found.

"The disease expression of COPD in women is different than in men," senior author Dr. Fernando Martinez of the University of Michigan said in a statement. "The main reason that we did this study was to highlight that there really are gender differences in the disease, and that they require additional study."

Martinez and his colleagues found not only are the manifestations of the disease different in men and women, but the risk factors, symptoms, disease, progression, and even diagnosis, are markedly different between the sexes.

One of the major gender differences in the manifestation of COPD is that women tend to develop more airway obstruction, whereas men tend to develop a more emphysematic manifestation of the disease. Martinez said the reason for that is unclear.

The study, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, found women also seem to be more prone than men to developing COPD from their exposures to risk factors, such as cigarette smoke and smoke from biomass fuels used for cooking in many developing countries.