ABSTRACT
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a multi-component disease with
pulmonary and extra-pulmonary manifestations (Fig. 1) (1). The latter (so-called,
systemic effects of COPD) is currently an area of intense research. This chapter
describes the systemic effects of COPD identified to date, and discusses their
pathogenesis and potential clinical implications (2,3). Given that systemic inflam-
mation is thought to be a key pathogenic mechanism of these systemic effects (albeit
probably not the only one) it is discussed first.
