Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: Signs and symptoms, diagnosis, treatments, lifestyle risk factors and management

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is associated with increased health complications, leading to a rise in mortality rates. COPD remains a significant global health issue, underscoring the importance of recognizing symptoms, facilitating diagnosis, and implementing effective treatment strategies. However, information on lifestyle risk factors and the management of COPD remains fragmented. This review paper aims to understand the clinical pathophysiologic changes triggered by lifestyle practices and their management strategies. It is important to understand its symptoms, diagnostics criteria, and treatment to correlate with lifestyle risk factors and to identify effective lifestyle interventions. Lifestyle practices as defined by dietary practices such being anorexia and low fruit and vegetable intake, smoking habits, alcohol consumption, and physical inactivity have increased the risk of COPD. This review suggested lifestyle approaches for COPD treatment such as regular exercise, a healthy diet, and avoiding smoking. In this case, the development of the guided improved intervention is important for a better understanding of the mechanisms between COPD and its associated lifestyle practices. This information may help clinicians, health practitioners, and dietitians to guide patients to implement improved dietary interventions. To avoid the progression of COPD, lifestyle practice therapy could be the most effective strategies that aid with medications as prescribed by the physicians

Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D is inversely associated with Nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a hospital-based matched case–control study in Malaysia

Serum 25(OH)D deficiency consistently demonstrated molecular mechanisms through which chronic inflammation is associated with the risk of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). This study aimed to determine the association between serum 25(OH)D and NPC. A matched case–control study was conducted at two local hospitals. A total of 300 histologically confirmed NPC cases were matched with controls for age, gender, and ethnicity, and assessed for vitamin D status and other nutritional factors. Mean Vitamin D concentration was significantly lower among cases compared to controls (63.17 ± 19.15 nmol/L and 67.34 ± 23.06 nmol/L) (t = −2.41, p = 0.016). Multiple conditional logistic regression analysis indicated that higher levels of serum 25(OH)D were associated with reduced odds of NPC (AOR = 0.73, 95 CI = 0.57–0.94, p = 0.016) controlling for confounders including BMI, physical activity, smoking status, alcohol consumption, consumption of food high in vitamin D, salted fish consumption, and family history of NPC. There was a significant association between inadequate serum 25(OH)D status with accumulation of four risk factors and increased odds of getting NPC using polynomial regression analysis. Increased NPC odds ratios were observed after sequential accumulation of additional risk factors with the presence of inadequate serum 25(OH)D status (OR = 0.54, 95 CI = 0.27, 4.77, p = 0.322, OR = 1.04, 95 CI = 0.64, 1.72, p = 0.267, OR = 1.15, 95 CI = 0.73, 1.80, p = 0.067, OR = 1.93, 95 CI = 1.13, 3.31, p = 0.022, and OR = 5.55, 95 CI = 1.67, 10.3, p < 0.001 respectively). Future research in Malaysia should involve both prospective cohort studies and randomized controlled trials to confirm and further clarify the role of vitamin D in NPC outcomes