Authors: Margetts BM, Jackson AA.
Institution: Institute of Human Nutrition, University of Southampton.
Objective: To compare diet, nutrient intakes, and biochemical measures between smokers and non-smokers.Results: Smokers ate more white bread, sugar, cooked meat dishes, butter, and whole milk and less wholemeal bread, high fibre breakfast cereals, fruit, and carrots. Smokers had lower intakes of polyunsaturated fat, protein, carbohydrate, fibre, iron, carotene, and ascorbic acid. Adjusting for other covariates did not substantially alter the pattern of intakes. At the same dietary intake of carotenoids smokers were more likely to have lower circulating serum beta carotene concentrations than non-smokers.
Conclusion: The diet and nutrient intakes and circulating levels of nutrients of smokers were different from those of non-smokers. Smokers were more likely to have an imbalance between the dietary intake of antioxidant nutrients and the metabolic demand for antioxidant protection. This imbalance is likely to make smokers more susceptible to oxidative damage.
Smokers are at increased risk of chronic disease because their diets are different and because smoking creates an altered pattern of demand for specific nutrients. The diets of smokers not only fail to meet the unusual requirements for specific nutrients to satisfy the altered pattern of demand but are likely to exacerbate the damage caused by smoking.
Related Studies:
- Interactions Between People's Diet and their Smoking Habits: the Dietary and Nutritional Survey of British Adults
- Dietary Intake in Male and Female Smokers, ex-Smokers, and Never Smokers: the INTERMAP Study
- Sugar Consumption and Cigarette Smoking
