The name Amy Winehouse has always been synonymous with drugs and alcohol. However, recently it has also become connected with Emphysema, a serious lung condition mostly associated with smoking. According to a medical website, “Emphysema involves damage to the air sacs or alveoli in the lungs, reducing the amount of oxygen the body can take in. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath and a chronic cough, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The most common cause is smoking. The disease, once entrenched, cannot be reversed. The condition can be stabilized, however, if a person stops smoking.” It is usually only found in people over 45 years of age though, and that’s what makes this rather shocking, as Amy is only 24. The website also said that: “There’s also the possibility — not a probability — that she’s got a genetic variation. Five percent of people with emphysema have a genetic predisposition” Although let’s face it, in her case it’s probably as a result of smoking.

The Telegraph newspaper website states that this will affect her singing in that “The big difference for singers is that they require more breath and so those with emphysema can’t hold the phrases and notes that their colleagues can. They also have difficulty with volume and sometimes have trouble with high notes because they have to take in more breath.” However her singing should be the least of her problems, as her father, Mitch Winehouse said that “The doctors have told her if she goes back to smoking drugs, it won’t just ruin her voice, it will kill her. There are nodules around the chest and dark marks. She has 70 percent lung capacity.” She has also been warned that she will have to wear an oxygen mask unless she stops smoking drugs. There is not much that can be done for Emphysema, and the only real treatment in the end would be a lung transplant, although should she continue her current behaviour, she would not be eligible.

While having 70% lung capacity is a far cry from needing supplemental oxygen, she will definitely need it in the future should she not change her behaviour, which seems unlikely, as she was apparently spotted smoking in the week following her diagnosis. In an CNN.com article her father also said that “she was covered in nicotine patches and is “flourishing” in response to treatments”. It’s quite hard to imagine an addict covered in nicotine patches being described as ‘flourishing’, but let’s hope she does stop smoking, even if it’s just to set an example for some of her impressionable fans. Although I guess that even if she fails to be an example, at least it would serve as a warning.