While passive smoking is still a major public health problem, a study shows that the quality of food could reduce respiratory diseases in young people exposed to smoke.
- In young people, a healthy diet reduces the chances of developing asthma from contact with tobacco smoke
- Since adolescents still have immature organisms, passive smoking may impact the development of chronic respiratory diseases in adulthood
A healthy diet stronger than the harmfulness of passive smoking? A study published in Annals of the American Thoracic Society demonstrated the effectiveness of diets based on fruits and fibers on the deleterious effects of early exposure to smoke, in particular on asthma
More than 7,000 adolescents followed
To achieve this result, American researchers followed more than 7,000 non-smoking adolescents, separated into groups according to several monitoring criteria: the quality of the diet classified by the Healthy Eating Index 2010-score into five criteria and the rate of exposure to tobacco smoke, measured by cotinine, a blood biomarker. Tobacco exposure was either low (less than 2.99 ng/ml) or high (greater than 2.99 ng/ml). In comparison, smokers have levels above 15 ng/ml and non-smokers typically have levels below 1 ng/ml.
The benefits of the Mediterranean diet
Among these adolescents, those who were confronted with a high rate of passive smoking and who followed the most qualitative diet, the Mediterranean diet based on fruits and vegetables, rich in fiber and omega 3, developed less asthma than those whose diet was of lower quality because it consisted of saturated fats and processed foods.
The fact of studying adolescents is particularly interesting since this period of life is when one is most sensitive to one’s direct environment which, in the case of passive smoking, can contribute to the development of chronic respiratory diseases in the adulthood. This is also the time when we adopt eating habits that will have an impact in future life.
24% of young people exposed to tobacco smoke at home
Today, nearly two-thirds of adolescents aged 12 to 16 worldwide are exposed to passive smoking, most of them in public places. In France, among 17-year-olds, 24% say they are exposed to tobacco smoke at home and more than 62% in front of their school in 2017, according to a study by the Public Health France site. One in seven teenagers (more than 14%) say they have had at least one asthmatic episode in their lifetime. In the United States, they are more than four million to develop asthma.
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