\n<\/p>\n
I<\/span>t used to be thought that the lungs\u00a0couldn\u2019t regenerate,\u201d says Dr\u00a0Charlotte Dean, head of the lung development and disease group at Imperial College London. \u201cBut we know now that\u2019s not the case. Broadly speaking, they can repair when you quit smoking.\u201d<\/p>\n Smoking is in effect damaging your\u00a0lungs, Dean says, and the lungs have a\u00a0substantial capacity to heal themselves. They have evolved to cope with pollution or getting infected by bacteria or viruses. \u201cBecause they\u2019re so vital \u2013 you can\u2019t survive without your lungs \u2013 they needed to have this capacity,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n double quotation markWhile it\u2019s broadly true that you can revert back to much better lung health, it doesn\u2019t mean that you\u2019re out of the woods<\/p>\n Dean says this shouldn\u2019t be used as\u00a0an excuse to smoke, though; smoking and vaping expose your lungs\u00a0to more toxic particles than they\u00a0can cope with. Importantly, everyone is different and some people\u2019s lungs will not be able to regenerate as well as others and so will\u00a0be much more susceptible to\u00a0permanent tissue damage from\u00a0smoking.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile it\u2019s broadly true that if you stop smoking you can revert to having much better lung health, it doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re completely out of the woods. You may well have triggered mutations or genetic changes or tissue damage, and those things can affect your overall lung health, meaning that the decline as you age will come quicker or could lead to cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n She would encourage smokers to quit as early as possible as \u2013 similarly to how your bones don\u2019t mend as well as you age \u2013 your lung tissue gets less effective at repairing itself as you get older. A healthy lifestyle can help. \u201cExercise is really important,\u201d says Dean. \u201cJust like how when you exercise you keep your muscles healthy, in a way the lungs are the same. You build up the capacity for gas exchange to happen more effectively, to provide oxygen around the body.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It used to be thought that the lungs\u00a0couldn\u2019t regenerate,\u201d says Dr\u00a0Charlotte Dean, head of the lung development and disease group at Imperial College London. \u201cBut we know now that\u2019s not the case. Broadly speaking, they can repair when you quit smoking.\u201d Smoking is in effect damaging your\u00a0lungs, Dean says, and the lungs have a\u00a0substantial capacity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[37,939,3602,3392,6104,1933,6200],"class_list":{"0":"post-49069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-lungs","10":"tag-quit","11":"tag-regenerate","12":"tag-smoking","13":"tag-true","14":"tag-wellbeing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}