Yes, your lungs are ageing fast. Here’s why?

Your lungs are aging, day by day. And they age faster if your mom was into smoking when she was pregnant, if you a history of respiratory infection or where born on a particular date.

Like all organs, lungs too age and they age due to some contributing factors. According to a new study, three factors influence ageing of the lungs: having a mother who smoked when she was pregnant with you will affect your lungs in a negative way; if your birth happened to be during the harsh winter season. And finally, if you experienced a severe respiratory infection at a very young age, the study revealed.

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People who have been exposed to these factors have a faster decline in lung function, which practically means a faster ageing process. However, this only becomes apparent if they themselves start smoking or if other risk factors have been a part of their early life, explained the researchers.

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Children of mothers who smoked during their pregnancy are more prone to faster lung aging. (Shutterstock)

“It is logical that early life development also affects the systems that maintain our body and repair damage. If so, this could explain why some people do not tolerate exposure to certain toxics in later life. And that is actually what we found,” said Cecilie Svanes, professor at the University of Bergen (UiB) in Norway.

The study, published in the journal PlosONE, focussed on people aged between 40 and 70 years to find out if conditions in early life also affect the lungs’ ageing.