A quarter to a third of all smokers suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – also known as emphysema – which is an incurable lung disease causing restricted airflow and breathing problems that can make sufferers feel like they are trying to breathe underwater.

But few COPD patients have ever heard of it, according to Prof. Zvi Fridlender, founding director and senior physician of the internal medicine department at the Lung Institute of Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem. He is also chairman of the Israel Association of Pulmonology.

COPD is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide, responsible for almost four million annually, or 5% of the total. Tobacco smoking and second- and third-hand smoking (exposure to other’s smoke or toxins on rugs, cur

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