Don’t wait until you’re out of breath to start protecting your lungs.

It’s as simple as breathing in and breathing out—until breathing doesn’t come easy any more.

Unlike a heart attack or stroke, the shortness of breath from chronic lung disease tends to progress slowly, without drama. It’s little wonder, then, that many of us take our lungs for granted. When it comes to lung diseases, myth and mystery prevail.

For example, many people know next to nothing about COPD, the fourth leading U.S. cause of death after cardiovascular disease, cancer, and stroke. COPD stands for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. This condition literally takes your breath away, and it’s usually caused by smoking.

Take a moment to review some myths and facts about lung disease.

Myth: Recurring shortness of breath isn’t a big deal.
Fact: Recurring shortness of breath is abnormal regardless of age. It could show that you’re badly out of shape—or that you have a serious ailment such as heart disease, asthma, or emphysema that could benefit from treatment.

“We all lose a little lung capacity as we grow older,” says Norman H. Edelman, M.D., chief medical officer of the American Lung Association. “But you should always be able to keep up with healthy people in your age group. If you’re 50 years old and you’re huffing and puffing as you work your way around the golf course, and others your age are not, you’ve got a problem that needs to be checked out.”

Myth: If I’m seriously losing lung function, I’ll know it.
Fact: “People frequently have lost 40 percent of their lung capacity before they notice anything,” Edelman notes. He explains that lungs come with a lot of excess capacity, probably because they were designed to help us do things like escaping from a lion in the jungle. Today few of us besides athletes push our lungs to full capacity.

Myth: The only disease I have to worry about from smoking is lung cancer.
Fact: Smoking increases your risk for many other forms of cancer, too. It causes diseases such as COPD (which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema), coronary heart disease, stroke, abdominal aortic aneurysm, cataracts, and pneumonia. Smoking harms nearly every organ in the body. It’s linked with infertility, peptic ulcers, and slow healing of wounds—to name just a few problems.

Myth: I’ve been smoking for so long, there’s no reason to quit now.
Fact: “There’s a lot of evidence to show that quitting is valuable at any age,” Edelman says. It’s true that lung function declines as you grow older, and smoking dramatically hastens that decline. But your lungs are likely to benefit within months after you quit smoking. Quitting also quickly reduces your chance for a heart attack or stroke.

Myth: It makes little sense to take a prescription asthma controller medication every day.
Fact: If your doctor has prescribed a daily controller medication for asthma, it helps to take it exactly as prescribed. “A controller medication can give you better symptom control and reduce the need for quick relief medications. Those quick relievers have their side effects,” Edelman explains.

Many asthma groups recommend asthma controller medications for patients with persistent asthma. These are the patients whose symptoms flare up more than twice a week during the day and more than twice a month at night.

Myth: If I don’t notice asthma symptoms, there’s no asthma.
Fact: Many people have asthma without knowing it because they don’t recognize the symptoms. Wheezing is just one symptom. You may experience shortness of breath or regularly wake up at night coughing. A small child who is regularly seen coughing as he tries and fails to catch up with other children at play should be checked for asthma, Edelman suggests.

Myth: Asthma is all in your mind.
Fact: It can be easy to assume that a youngster struggling with asthma symptoms is just upset and trying to attract attention. But while psychological stress and even laughter can trigger an asthma attack, it’s definitely not all in the mind.

“Asthma may be affected by emotion, but it’s not caused by emotion,” Edelman says. “Asthma is an honest-to-goodness disease.”

Myth: There’s no treatment for COPD.
Fact: There’s no cure, but medications can improve lung function and quality of life and reduce exacerbations from COPD. Research suggests that some COPD treatments may slow the disease’s progression. That might add years to patients’ lives.

The upshot: Aim for a lung-healthy lifestyle—and if you think you may have symptoms of lung disease, see your doctor right away. Just don’t wait until you’re all out of breath to act.

Polly Turner spoke with Norman H. Edelman, M.D., chief medical officer of the American Lung Association.

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