Experts warn India's future at risk as young lungs deteriorating, struggle to breathe

Experts have cautioned that lung health in younger Indians is deteriorating rapidly, with nearly 81,700 new cases of lung cancer each year reflecting the magnitude of the threat.

Once thought of as diseases of old age, lung cancer, COPD and tuberculosis are now being seen earlier in life, raising fears of a demographic and economic disaster.

The young who run at dawn in smog, the professionals who commute long distances through choking traffic, and the students sitting in polluted classrooms are breathing toxic air into their lungs every single day, experts noted.

This invisible injury will surface in their most productive years, when the country needs them most, they said.

The crisis is not confined to outdoor pollution.

Evidence shared by experts at RESPICON 2025, the eighth National Conference of Respiratory Medicine, Interventional Pulmonology and Sleep Disorders, held on Saturday, showed that kitchen smoke and indoor biomass fuels are significantly raising lung cancer risk among non-smoking women, a danger often overlooked in public debates.

Children, too, continue to bear the burden — pneumonia still accounts for 14% of global under-five deaths, and repeated infections driven by polluted air are undermining childhood health and immunity.

"What alarms us is how visibly the youth — the very segment that should be the strongest — are showing the scars of toxic air. If young Indians cannot breathe freely today, the nation's future suffocates with them," Dr Aditya K. Chawla, Organising Secretary, RESPICON 2025.