A Healthy Diet Can Reduce the Harmful Effects of Smoking

The risks of smoking are well publicized--cancer, heart disease, stroke, and lowered resistance to disease, including colds and flu. What isn't talked about much is that many of these health problems are connected to the nutritional deficiencies caused by smoking. Smoker's typically have low levels of vital nutrients like vitamins C and E, zinc, calcium, folate, and the omega-3 essential fatty acid. Making sure you get enough of these nutrients won't make you immune to the effects of cigarette smoke, but it can help keep the damages to a minimum.
Better nutrition for smokers can make a difference.

Vitamin E helps protect the heart
One smoking-related factor that raises the risk of heart attack is atherosclerosis, a hardening and narrowing of the arteries caused by deposits of LDL ("bad") cholesterol and other substances. Cigarette smoke contributes to changes in dietary cholesterol that make it possible for that cholesterol to stick to the artery walls. The anti-oxidant properties of vitamin E help prevent cholesterol from changing in this harmful way. As an anti-oxidant, vitamin E can also sweep up free radicals (reactive molecules that can disrupt cell function) and protect cells from mutations related to cancer and other diseases. For these reasons, it's often considered the most important of vitamins for smokers. Good dietary sources of vitamin E include sunflower seeds, almonds, olives and oils made from these foods. Leafy green vegetables like spinach also contain healthy amounts of vitamin E.

The benefits of vitamin C
Deficiency of vitamin C is another problem for smokers. In terms of nutrition for smokers, getting more of this vitamin two main benefits. Vitamin C is needed for proper immune function--something smokers often have trouble with--and it also slows down smoking-related loss of vitamin E. Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered that taking 1000 milligrams of vitamin C a day could cut the rate at which smokers lose one form of vitamin E by up to 45%. That put them on par with non-smoker's. (Study with smokers shows vitamins combine for benefits. Free Radical Biology and Medicine. February 25, 2006). As an additional benefit, vitamin C also helps prevent receding gums, a problem common in smokers.

Zinc and selenium for immune support
Smoking interferes with your body's ability to use zinc, a mineral needed for the immune system and male reproductive system. It also has negative effects on the body's use of selenium, another mineral important for a healthy immune system. Getting enough of two trace minerals can do more than help you avoid colds, though. Researchers studying the effects of zinc, copper and selenium on lung cancer found that smokers who had sufficient amounts of these minerals in their diets had less risk of lung cancer. (Dietary zinc, copper and selenium, and risk of lung cancer. International Journal of Cancer. March 1, 2007. ) Be careful with zinc supplements, though. These can lead to an overload of zinc, which brings its own problems. Get your zinc from food sources like beef, lamb, oysters, legumes such as lentils and chickpeas (garbanzo beans), eggs, milk, and whole-grain products.

Nutrition for women who smoke
Although it's not well know, smoking also speeds up the loss of bone mass that occurs as a woman ages. This means women who smoke are at greater risk for osteoporosis, a condition characterized by weak, brittle bones. While eating better won't completely stop smoking-related loss of bone mass, it can slow it down. For healthy bones, make sure you're getting enough calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D. Cut down on cookies and soda, which contain levels of phosphorus high enough to interfere with other nutrients. Folate is another concern in nutrition for smokers. Women trying conceive are often advised to take folate supplements to prevent birth defects. This is even more important for women who smoke because smoking depletes folate.

Be careful with beta-carotene
Nutrition for smokers isn't all anount getting more vitamins and minerals, though. Strange as it may seem, there's one nutrient that smokers should be careful they don't get too much of. The results of one study found that smokers getting 20 mg of beta-carotene or more every day for several years actually had an 18% increased the risk of lung cancer. (Effects of alpha-tocopherol and beta-carotene supplements on cancer incidence in the Alpha-Tocopherol Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. July 23, 1995). Smoker or not, your body still the beta-carotene in foods like carrots, sweet potatoes, and dark green vegetables. Although no recommended daily allowance has been set for this nutrient, around 3 to 6 mg a day is generally considered healthy. Just stay away from supplements that could boost your levels much above that.

Now the bad news
The benefits of better nutrition for smokers have their limits. Eating a well balanced, nutritious diet can take the edge of the negative effects of smoking, but you're still better off not smoking at all. What's more, unless you improve your diet to replace the nutrients smoking destroys, those specially formulated "vitamins for smokers" may not help much. One study showed supplements don't reduce the risk of lung cancer (Supplemental multivitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E, and folate does not reduce the risk of lung cancer. American Journal Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Nov. 7, 2007). Other studies have shown that taking anti-oxidants can improve short term health problems, but the cumulative effects of smoking aren't changed much.

Of course, there are plenty of health benefits to eating a good diet and staying away from junk food that aren't just about nutrition for smokers, When it comes to avoiding the harmful effects of cigarette smoke, though, it's still better to quit smoking.