Studies find genetic susceptibility to COPD

Studies by Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca and the Swedish Karolinska Institutet has discovered that genetic factors may be of almost as great a contribution to the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as the environment.

The research, reported at the international conference of the American Thoracic Society, used chronic bronchitis as a surrogate for COPD and analysed the development of the disease in fraternal twins. A comparison was made between the siblings, contrasting environmental factors and the development of self-reported bronchitis.

Results showed that the development of the disease was often reliant upon genetic makeup, irrespective of whether the patient smoked. Heritability for bronchitis was 40%, with only 6% of total patients sharing genes common both to smoking and to bronchitis. The other 60% of the variance was attributed to environmental factors, including smoking. As such, the study claims, the development of the disease is almost as likely to be through inherited genes as through smoking.