Table 2.

Baseline characteristics of COPD patients and healthy volunteers.

Parameter	COPD	Healthy volunteers
Patients/healthy volunteers (n)	207	106
Age (± SD)	63.3 ± 10.8	63.9 ± 11.1
Sex (male : female)	136:71	47:59
BMI	26.5 ± 0.5	26.9 ± 0.4
FEV1 (l)	1.4 ± 0.7	2.7 ± 0.7
FEV1 %predicted	50.5 ± 20.2	101.8 ± 14.1
FVC (l)	2.5 ± 0, 9	3.4 ± 0.9
FVC %predicted	69.9 ± 19.1	103.1 ± 16.0
FEV1/FVC	57.8 ± 14.0	80.7 ± 6.6
GOLD classification of groups		Not applicable
1. Chronic bronchitis n (%)	23 (11.1)
2. GOLD 1 n (%)	8 (3.9)
3. GOLD 2 n (%)	66 (31.9)
4. GOLD 3 n (%)	50 (24.2)
5. GOLD 4 n (%)	60 (28.9)