Abstract
Background
In smokers, smoking causes many disease entities including cancers, chronic pulmonary diseases and cardiovascular diseases. Passive smoking is also accepted as a carcinogen and its adverse health effects are emphasized. We measured blood vitamin A, C, E (α-, β- and γ-tocopherol), coenzyme Q10 and urine cotinine concentrations in nonsmokers and smokers.
Methods
Twenty-one healthy nonsmokers and 24 healthy smokers were included in this study. Smoking status was assessed with a self-reported questionnaire. Plasma was analyzed for coenzyme Q10 and serum for vitamin A, C, E using HPLC (Agilent Technologies Inc., USA) and random urine for cotinine using LC/tandem mass spectrometry (Applied Biosystems Inc., Canada).
Results
Smokers had significantly lower serum concentrations of vitamin C than nonsmokers (P=0.0005). No significant differences in concentrations of serum vitamin A, E, and plasma coenzyme Q10 were observed. Smokers had highly elevated urine cotinine levels (1,454±903 ng/mL). In 16 (76.2%) of 21 nonsmokers, urine cotinine was detected (3.25±4.08 ng/mL). The correlations between urine cotinine and blood antioxidants levels were not found. Neither, the correlation between smoking status and blood antioxidants & urine cotinine was found.
Conclusions
This study shows that smokers had significantly lower vitamin C levels among nonenzymatic antioxidants, namely, vitamin A, C, E and coenzyme Q10. High detection rate of urine cotinine in nonsmokers show the seriousness of passive smoking exposure, therefore more social efforts should be directed to reduce passive smoking exposure.
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Table 1.
Table 2.
Table 3.
Antioxidant (mg/L) | Non-smokers (N=21) | Smokers (N=24) | P value | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mean±SD | Range | Mean±SD | Range | ||
Vitamin A | 1.04±0.65 | 0.16-2.73 | 1.11±0.66 | 0.35-2.52 | 0.3094 |
Vitamin C | 14.09±12.28 | 0.29-43.09 | 4.08±3.89 | 0.03-16.27 | 0.0005∗ |
Vitamin E | |||||
α-tocopherol | 9.31±3.29 | 0.05-17.14 | 9.47±3.50 | 2.10-20.19 | 0.4806 |
β-tocopherol | 0.05±0.11 | 0.06-0.53 | 0.16±0.18 | 0.06-0.76 | NA |
γ-tocopherol | 0.60±0.45 | 0.08-0.61 | 0.54±0.68 | 0.08-1.99 | 0.2748 |
Total (α, β, γ-tocopherol) | 9.94±3.50 | 0.13-18.76 | 10.14±4.03 | 2.18-22.83 | 0.3628 |
Coenzyme Q10 | 0.89±0.46 | 0.41-2.21 | 0.71±0.32 | 0.18-1.51 | 0.2698 |