There is a saying, 'I'm older than my teeth and the same age as my tongue'.

But if you are a smoker aged 45, your lungs could be as much as 135 years old.

This is what many people discovered when they attended a World Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Open House at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

COPD is an umbrella term for chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Symptoms of COPD would include a permanent cough, coughing up mucus every day, and shortness of breath with daily activities.

"People with these symptoms should go along to their doctor and ask for a simple lung function test," said Debbie Barboza, asthma and COPD nurse educator at the hospital.

"People who have COPD have permanent damage to their lungs. It is irreversible. It is a very slow, progressive disease."

Sufferers are usually smokers, former smokers or people who work in dusty workplaces where they breathe in a lot of chemicals or smoke.

Some people who suffer from it didn't necessarily smoke, but breathed in someone else's cigarette smoke for a long time. About one percent of people with COPD don't smoke, but are genetically predisposed to it.

"We are trying to hone in on the smokers or ex-smokers," said Mrs. Barboza. "A lot of people think that if they quit smoking ten years ago they are scott-free.

"But in fact, if they are one of the people who are susceptible to lung disease this may not be true."

There are an estimated five million people in the world with COPD. Three million people a year die from it.

It kills more people each year than breast cancer and colon cancer. It is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide.

"I was reading an article that suggested in another ten years it would be the third leading cause of death," said Mrs. Baboza.

Despite these staggering statistics Mrs. Barboza said they still didn't see a lot of people coming in for lung function tests.

"People make excuses for it," she said. "They blame the shortness of breath or getting older."

She recommended a lung function test for all smokers and former smokers.

"If we tell you now that you have some lung damage, you can do something about it," she said. "As soon as you quit smoking you slow the fast progression of this disease."

She said the results can be quite scary. "The lung function test tells you the approximate age of your lungs.

"She said she has seen quite a few people between the ages of 40 and 50 with lungs functioning like those of a 130-year-old."

She said the most important thing was for people diagnosed with COPD to quit smoking.

"We need you to do an exercise programme of some sort whether it is walking inside or outside your house," she said. "You need to have an exercise programme every day to make their lungs work as hard as they can.

"If you don't use it; you lose it."

She was proud to say that she had taken the lung function test while taking courses about COPD, and found that her lungs were functioning five years below her age.

Around 200 people attended last Wednesday's COPD open house. "It was jammed," she said. "We couldn't have done it without the assistance of local charity Open Airways." Open Airways is a charity concerned with asthma and other respiratory problems.

"The problem is much bigger than one person," she said. "We often work with Open Airways when we are trying to educate the public."

Mrs. Barboza said that COPD was not just an individual problem. "If you have a lot of people with COPD," she said. "A lot of them are still of working age. But the rest of society has to find some way to care for these people."

No referrals are needed to request a lung function test. Consult your doctor or telephone Mrs. Barboza at 239-1652. She can also be reached through email at asthmacentre@bhb.bm . For more information about COPD go to www.goldcopd.org .