New medical study said that one third of people who breathe in the air in the presence of large quantities of cigarette smoke or what is known as passive smoking face damage in the lung is quite similar to those experienced by smokers in person.

The study, prepared by a team of Hospital of Philadelphia, U.S., 60 people aged between 41 and 79, including 45 non-smokers, were considered non-smokers at risk for smoking if they had lived with a smoker for at least 10 years, often in childhood.

The team of researchers found that 57% of smokers and 33% of non-smokers with high exposure to secondhand smoke had signs of early lung damage as measured by magnetic resonance imaging.

He sought the help of doctors who oversaw the research a special kind of magnetic resonance imaging to examine the lungs of non-smokers who are exposed to cigarette smoke others were present in the same places, and found evidence of the types of damage that causes the disease emphysema.

The research team considered that these changes are early signs of lung damage, representing mild forms of emphysema, indicating that almost one third of nonsmokers who were exposed to cigarette smoke indirectly for a long time suffered.

Said the research team, who presented results of the study meeting of the North American radiation medicine in Chicago, that 35% of American children live in homes where someone smokes regularly.

In February 2007, U.S. researchers reported that up to 20% of women who contracted lung cancer have never smoked at all.