Even exercise and good diet, so important for your general health, will not cause your lungs to regrow. That is why you must start now to preserve the lung function you have. Return to Top of Page 16. You should be retested in three to five years. Your test results may be normal now, but you can still become abnormal later.
Smoking attracts inflammatory cells that release enzymes that digest the lung.
It may be a few years before enough digestion has taken place to be detected by spirometry. In addition, smoking puts you at risk for many diseases, including cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach, and bladder, heart disease, hypertension, stroke, peripheral vascular disease and leukemia. Smoking also causes premature wrinkles. Amazingly, spirometry results predict sickness and death from all causes, even though it is a lung test. Abnormal spirometry results predict increased risk for premature death, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, and even premature wrinkling.