You can't change how much secondhand smoke you were exposed to as a child. But you might be able to lessen some of the negative health effects that are often associated with that exposure by eating more fiber-rich foods: legumes, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and soy. Those are the remarkable findings of a study of adult non-smokers in Singapore.
As you might expect, researchers found that those who lived with a smoker during childhood had more respiratory problems, including chronic cough when they became adults. However, the study participants who reported eating more fruit and soy fiber as adults seemed to be protected against some of the chronic respiratory problems.
Ill-effects of Smoking
When teens and children 18 or younger lived with one or more smokers, they were more than twice as likely to suffer from chronic dry cough as adults, according to the study published by researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The researchers also found that the more smokers there were in the home during a person's childhood, the greater the risk of having chronic cough and chronic phlegm in adulthood.
Dietary Fiber Helps
"Because we had previously found data suggesting that a diet high in fruit and soy fiber might reduce the incidence of chronic respiratory symptoms in this Singaporean population, we decided to study the impact of fiber on problems associated with early tobacco exposure," said researcher Stephanie London, MD. "We actually found that people who ate even a small amount of fruit fiber had less chronic cough related to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS)."
Study participants who ate more than 7.5 grams of fiber each day (the equivalent of eating two apples) had fewer health problems associated with ETS. Dr. London pointed out that the average weight of the Singapore study participants was 127 lbs. She also added that most Singaporeans get their fiber from fruits, vegetables and soy.
"Fiber may have beneficial effects on the lung," said Dr. London. "It seems to have the ability to reduce blood glucose concentrations, reduce inflammation, and enhance antioxidant processes. All of these might help to protect the lung against environmental insults, such as ETS in childhood. However, the possible benefits of fiber should not lessen the importance of reducing exposure to environmental tobacco smoke."
What You Can Do
Don't smoke. If you quit, stop. Avoid exposure to secondhand smoke. And to help protect your lungs, make sure you eat plenty of fiber-rich foods.
Fiber removes cholesterol from the blood, keeps your bowels working regularly, and helps protect against colon cancer. It might even help keep you from getting type 2 diabetes. Because of these and other reasons, the American Dietetic Association recommends that healthy adults eat 20 to 25 grams of fiber daily. Fiber is found only in plant-based foods. Meat, fowl, fish, and dairy products do not contain fiber (that includes milk, yogurt, ice cream, and eggs). Neither do most juices. To increase your fiber intake:
- Eat four to five servings of vegetables daily.
- Eat four to five servings of fruits daily.
- Eat one or two servings of beans, lentils, or peas daily.
- Eat four to eight servings of whole-grain cereals and other whole-grain foods daily.
About the Study
The data for this study were collected from the Singapore Chinese Health Study, a population of men and women of Chinese ethnicity ranging in ages from 45 to 74 at enrollment, who live in Singapore. The 35,000 non-smokers provided information regarding environmental tobacco smoke before and after age 18, a medical history including information on respiratory symptoms of chronic cough, phlegm production, and asthma diagnosis, as well as information on dietary intake. |
