Fruit, Vegetable-Rich Diet Halves Lung Disease Risk

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One expert believes that diet is important but that avoiding smoking is even more important for cutting COPD risk.

"These are consistent with other findings," said Dr. Norman Edelman, the chief medical officer at the American Lung Association. "It looks like diet is related to susceptibility to a wide variety of diseases in general and lung diseases in particular," he said.

Edelman noted that 90 percent of COPD results from smoking. "Just because a good diet reduces your risk of COPD doesn't mean that it's worth the risk of smoking," he said. "If somebody says: 'Oh, if I eat right, I can smoke and get away with it' -- they're dead wrong."

More information

For more information on COPD, visit the U.S. National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.