Health News
Vitamin C Offers Health Benefit to Smokers
February 15, 2006
According to a study published in Free Radical Biology and Medicine, Vitamin C supplements can help halt the depletion of vitamin E in smokers and possibly help prevent cancer.
Vitamin E is one of the lungs' first lines of defense against cigarette smoke, which creates destructive free radicals. Healthy levels of vitamin E can help prevent the destruction of lung membranes. But, through this protective process, vitamin E itself can become a destructive radical. Sufficient levels of vitamin C help vitamin E return to non-radical form and continue to protect the lungs. Smokers who took vitamin C supplements had nearly the same amount of antioxidant protection as non-smokers.
The study was led by investigators at Oregon State University and is the first to demonstrate this type of interaction between the two antioxidants in humans. They researchers say the findings also suggest a possible mechanism by which smoking causes cancer.