<p>The prevalence of respiratory symptoms and diseases like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), seem to have increased the last decades. The reason for the increase in asthma related symptoms and allergy is uncertain. Some, but not all, of this increase might be ascribed to lowered threshold for use of the diagnosis by medical doctors, change in diagnostic criteria, and increased awareness of symptoms in the population. Studies have indicated that increased prevalence might be explained by a reduction during the last decades in exposure to environmental factors in infancy, These factors are supposed to stimulate the change from Th-2 to TH-1 helper cells (hygiene hypothesis), but even low level of allergen exposure seems to contribute to increase in risk for allergy. The increase in COPD in developed countries is closely related to the smoking pattern during the last two to four decades, and the increased therefore, is mainly seen in women. Further, studies have indicated that women are more vulnerable for the deleterious effects of tobacco smoking than men are; if this is true the current smoking pattern with increased female smoking, is worrying. </p> / Paper 1 reprinted with kind permission of Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Papers 2 and 3 reprinted with kind permission of European Respiratory Society Journals Ltd. Paper 4 reprinted with kind permission of John Wiley and Sons Limited.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:ntnu-126 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Langhammer, Arnulf |
| Publisher | Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Medicine, Det medisinske fakultet |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary, text |
| Relation | Dissertations at the Faculty of Medicine, 0805-7680 ; 232 |
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