Quote Originally Posted by ForresterModern View Post
.... emphysema.....chronic bronchitis......COPD..........atherosclerosis..... .cancer...........

j
All true.

After getting my DVM, and spending a few years in practice, I returned to school and earned a MS and a PhD. One of the very best courses that I took toward my PhD was physiological biochemistry.

Among many other things, I leared that a major destructive effect of smoking invovles direct inactivation of alpha 1-antitrypsin A1AT).

A1AT protects against neutorophil (a white blood cell) elastase. Essential methionine residues are oxidized to sulfoxide forms, decreasing the enzyme activity by a factor of 2000. This has major effects not only on the lung (COPD, emphysema) but on the liver (cirrhosis) in many patients .

If you smoke, your neutrophils are putting out elastase 24/7. It would be best to quit.