FRIDAY, Sept. 5 (HealthDay News) -- A new lung cancer risk assessment designed specifically for black Americans suggests that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a much greater lung cancer risk factor for blacks than for whites.

Researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston analyzed data from 491 black lung cancer patients and 497 blacks without lung cancer to identify risk factors for the disease.

MONDAY, Aug. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Recently discovered so-called free radicals that are attached to small particles of air pollution could cause lung damage and perhaps even lung cancer, researchers report.

If confirmed through further research, the finding could help to explain why nonsmokers develop tobacco-related diseases like lung cancer, said lead researcher H. Barry Dellinger, the Patrick F. Taylor Chair of environmental chemistry at Louisiana State University.

FRIDAY, Aug. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Taking creatine doesn't improve exercise outcomes in people who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a U.K. study reports.

Creatine is a popular nutritional supplement used to enhance athletic performance and muscle strength. This study included 100 COPD patients who received either creatine or a placebo during a seven-week pulmonary rehabilitation program.

THURSDAY, July 24 (HealthDay News) -- In experiments with mice, U.S. researchers have discovered why viral infections have more severe consequences in smokers than in nonsmokers. For example, smokers with influenza are more likely to die than nonsmokers with influenza.

The Yale University School of Medicine team found that a combination of cigarette smoke and compounds that mimic viral components caused more severe airway damage in a mouse model of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) than the compounds that mimic viral components alone.

As we celebrate the anniversary of women's right to vote on August 26th, Women's Equality Day, we need to draw attention to the effect of tobacco-related diseases on women.

Lung cancer has surpassed breast cancer as a leading killer of women. Smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke increases the risk of heart disease, which kills one of three women in the United States. Babies born to women who smoke and babies who are exposed to secondhand smoke after birth are at greater risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), asthma, and other chronic lung diseases.

MONDAY, July 21 (HealthDay News) -- Patients are being recruited for a clinical trial of a new targeted radiation and chemotherapy protocol for pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung's lining that's almost always caused by exposure to asbestos.

Currently, the standard treatment is to remove the affected lung.

By Jeffrey Perkel
HealthDay Reporter

SUNDAY, July 20 (HealthDay News) -- A sweeping genetic analysis suggests that the activity of certain genes might someday allow doctors to predict which lung cancer patients need more aggressive therapies and which do not.

But the findings also underscore the difficulty of making such predictions, especially in the case of people with the earliest forms of the disease, when aggressive therapies could be of greatest value.

THURSDAY, July 17 (HealthDay News) -- People with certain common genetic variations that affect their nicotine receptors seem to be at higher risk for becoming life-long nicotine addicts if they begin smoking before they turn 17, a new study says.

(HealthDay News) -- The shocking revelation by her father that 24-year-old British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse may have a mild form of emphysema leaves experts with more questions than answers.

It's possible that Winehouse, in addition to her well-publicized use of drugs and cigarettes, has a congenital condition that contributed to her current crisis, one lung doctor said.

"If you see emphysema in a young person, you have to think of that," said Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.