About 20-40% of adults with symptoms of COPD – but not the disease itself – use these types of long-lasting inhalers.

Researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health have found that dual bronchodilators – long-lasting inhalers that relax the airways and make it easier to breathe – do little to help people who do not have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but who do have respiratory symptoms and a history of smoking.

COPD, a lung disease that obstructs the airways and leads to coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath, affects about 15 million Americans. However, millions of others who smoke or used to smoke and have some symptoms of COPD have also been prescribed bronchodilators.

“We’ve assumed these medications worked in patients who don’t meet lung function criteria for COPD, but we never checked,” said MeiLan K. Han, M.D., a principal investigator and first author of the study and Chief of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Michigan Health. “We now know these existing medications don’t work for these patients.”

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