A large new study from the journal Scientific Reports has found that a marker in your blood — called the systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) — is closely tied to the risk of chronic bronchitis.
The researchers concluded that higher SII levels increase your risk of developing this persistent lung condition.
Chronic bronchitis is closely linked to inflammation in the airways, where immune cells like neutrophils and macrophages cause ongoing irritation and damage.
So, researchers wanted to know whether systemic inflammation could be used to identify people at risk.
After all, early detection could lead to better prevention and treatment.
The research team used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a major U.S. program that collects health information from a representative sample of the population.
They included data from over 40,000 adults collected between 2001 and 2018.
Complete blood work was available for all participants, and they were asked whether they had ever been diagnosed with chronic bronchitis.
This revealed 2,326 people with chronic bronchitis and 37,809 without it.
From the blood results, scientists calculated each person’s SII—a marker that reflects the balance of three types of immune cells: platelets, neutrophils, and lymphocytes.
This index has already been used to predict outcomes in cancer, heart disease, and other chronic conditions.
To see whether higher SII scores were linked to chronic bronchitis, the researchers used multiple statistical models and adjusted for other risk factors like age, smoking, physical activity, income, and existing health issues.
Here’s what they discovered:
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1. People with higher SII scores had significantly higher odds of having chronic bronchitis.
2. After adjusting for other lifestyle and health factors, each unit increase on the SII log scale was associated with a 52% higher risk of chronic bronchitis.
3. The risk was relatively flat below an SII value of 8.14, but above 8.14, every unit increase was linked to a 31% higher risk.
4. SII scores had strong predictive power, correctly identifying chronic bronchitis cases about 73% of the time.
5. SII was a better predictor than other inflammation markers that only track two types of immune cells.
The takeaway?
SII is a useful, non-invasive tool for identifying people at higher risk of chronic bronchitis—and it’s calculated from a standard blood test.
The good news is that if you already suffer from chronic bronchitis, you can drastically improve (even reverse) your condition by improving your SII score.
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