An old public service message showed an egg frying and stated, “This is your mind on drugs.”
However, today’s scientists are discovering that the disease, COPD can also be very destructive to your mind, and indeed to your brain tissue itself.
At Florida Lung, Asthma and Sleep Studies, we know patients who are diagnosed with COPD expect to have respiratory difficulties.
By definition, “Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic inflammatory lung disease that causes obstructed airflow from the lungs.”
However patients never expect how the disease can greatly affect the entire body, and especially the brain and the mind.
However, scientists have very recently discovered how greatly COPD can affect the brain and the mind as well as the lungs. Before we get deeply into this, today’s topic, let’s quickly review:
A Fast Re-examination–The Basics of COPD:
1. Often patients come to FLASS exhibiting the classic symptoms of COPD,
- Shortness of breath,
- Coughing,
- And chest tightness.
2. COPD is a term which covers emphysema and chronic bronchitis or a combination of the two. (For more COPD information, we suggest you visit one of our previous FLASS blog articles.)
A. Chronic bronchitis: This condition inflames the delicate lining of the bronchial tubes. The tubes are tasked with carrying air to and from the air sacs (alveoli) of your lungs. Patients have a cough which produces sputum.
B. Emphysema: This condition actually destroys the little air sacs at the end small air passages called bronchioles. This condition is often caused by exposure to harmful substances in the air or by tobacco smoking.
The Brain and COPD: Revealing The Newest Studies
If we realize that basically, COPD causes your lungs take in less air than normal. It is not too difficult to reason logically that oxygen reduction in the lungs might also cause problems in the brain.
“COPD reduces the amount of air your lungs take in, which over time, can make your blood low in oxygen. Low levels of oxygen to the brain may cause neural damage.”
Thus, a patient’s risk for having memory problems is increased.
Likewise, a second problem develops, and it also links to thinking and memory problems.
COPD patients “have high levels of several body chemicals related to inflammation. And the exact same body chemicals have been linked
to thinking and memory problems.”
Now, due to very recent studies, scientists published more information this month in the February issue of the journal, Chest and in Science Daily, concerning the true destructive power of COPD in the brain.
Let’s take a look at some of these newest findings linking mind, brain and COPD:
1. In their studies, scientists found that patients with COPD actually showed decreased gray matter in specialized parts of the brain that process:
- Breathlessness,
- Fear and
- Sensitivity to pain.
2. For those readers who like a little anatomy, this meant patients with COPD show regionally decreased gray matter in:
- the anterior, mid, and posterior cingulate cortex,
- the hippocampus,
- and amygdala.
3. The scientists also discovered that the longer a patient had endured COPD, the higher the amount of degeneration.
4. Inversely, the patients who had suffered COPD the longest, and had the greatest amount of degeneration, also exhibited the greatest fear of breathlessness and fear of physical activity.
It is important to know these facts about the structural effects of COPD on the brain.
F or example, physical activity is very important in the management of COPD. Health care givers can now better understand underlying factors which affect patient behavior and understanding. It can now be easily understood why a COPD patient might forget medications or breathing treatments.
Very little has been known about the structural brain changes that occur in COPD patients–Until now.
FLASS will keep you informed about these new studies.
The more we learn about how COPD affects the body and the mind, the better we can treat and manage it.
Previous studies enhanced our understanding of how COPD affects low moods and “subtly impaired cognition, systemic inflammation, and brain structural and neurochemical abnormalities.”
Andreas von Leupoldt, PhD from the Research Group Health Psychology, University of Leuven in Belgium, stated optimistically,
“Targeting disease-specific fears in patients with COPD might not only improve outcomes of clinical interventions such as pulmonary rehabilitation, but also reverse structural brain changes in these patients.”
Read more about it in Chest, the Journal of the American College of Chest Physicians, in the article, Structural Brain Changes in Patients With COPD.
