Cigarettes cause more damage than air pollution claim researchers

Cigarettes can make the lungs "leaky," causing far more damage than high levels of air pollution, researchers said yesterday.

Smoking cigarettes was found to cause a big increase in the "leakiness" of the lungs, reducing the efficiency of oxygen transport. However, no such increase was observed when healthy people were exposed to concentrated levels of ozone - a common air pollutant caused by vehicle exhaust fumes, the British Lung Foundation study found. The new research carried out at the Respiratory Medicine Unit at Edinburgh University is the first to compare the direct effects of tobacco smoke and ozone on the lungs.