It has been common knowledge for quite a while that tobacco smoke depletes blood serum levels of vitamin C in people who smoke. A recent investigative health study funded by the ‘National Institutes of Health’, and carried out by the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, have clearly shown that supplementing with vitamin C works at reversing vitamin E depletion and disappearance in people who smoke.

According to Maret Traber, a professor at OSU’s Linus Pauling Institute and a nationally known expert on vitamin E says, “tobacco smoke is an oxidative stress carcinogen that creates free radicals. Free radicals increase oxidative stress by causing cell mutation damage. This, of course, may lead to diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Smokers face special challenges, as they are more susceptible to a higher loss of protective antioxidant nutrients”.

It is estimated that there are nearly 50 million smokers in the U.S., and previous studies have indicated that smokers are more likely to be heavy meat eaters. They also tend to have a lower intake of fresh fruits and vegetables that provide known antioxidant protection against free radical damage.

In lung tissue, vitamin E is one of the best lines of defense in lessening oxidative stress damage generated by tobacco smoke. In theory, researchers believe vitamin E helps prevent internal cell membranes from becoming oxidized, but in the process can become a free radical itself. If enough vitamin C is present, it helps keep vitamin E from turning rancid and attacking organ tissues.

Current research has also shown that as a result of the low-fat diet that has swept this nation for several generations, only about 8 percent of men and 2.4 percent of women in the U.S., regardless of smoking status, have an adequate intake of vitamin E. Some of the best sources of vitamin E in the American diet are found in food sources such as nuts, seeds, and certain types of cooking oils. Most people have headed the medical communities recommendations of scaling back on these types of foods for better health. Other sources of vitamin E can be found in foods such as blueberries, olives, and papayas.

In the OSU research study, all participants were asked to reduce their daily intake of fruits and vegetables for 3 months before the study. Low levels of vitamin C was predetermined to be the basic foundation for implementing vitamin C supplements at 1,000 mg. per day for some, and a placebo for others. Those who received the vitamin C supplements had up to a 45 percent reduced incidence of vitamin E disappearance, about the same as a non-smoker.

But the smokers who received the placebo were not only still deficient in vitamin C, but lost gamma vitamin E 25 percent faster than a non-smoker, and alpha-vitamin E about 45 percent faster.

In practice most nutritional experts tend to agree that they believe that these nutrients need to be present long-term, and consistently, before they can be successful. They believe they are less successful, and of little or no benefit when studied in isolation or in individuals with an existing health condition.

Tarber states, “there may be circumstances where a smoker may be at risk of losing the benefits of these two nutrients with a normally healthy diet”.

Both vitamin C and E are just pieces to a larger nutrient puzzle that may have many interactive roles with other nutrients as well. Vitamin C is a water soluble substance and vitamin E is fat soluble. Vitamin C is found outside cell membranes, vitamin E is found inside cell membranes.

Research is providing us with some valuable clues as to how smoking, lack of sleep, poor diets, relationship interactions, and other lifestyle habits can affect our loss of nutrients. Our feelings about these things may play more of an important role in developing disease and illnesses than anything else. Despite conclusive evidence which supports the facts that a healthy diet plays a pivotal role in achieving a healthier body, people by and large still choose to eat and drink what they like and tastes good to them. And, we often adopt several other lifestyle habits that may, or may not, serve us very well too.

Whether some of these lifestyle choices all we have ever known, or have been taught was socially acceptable, all of these different experiences may just revolve around how each of us internally feels about the things we are doing that count the most.

Are we feeling good, or bad, about nutritional information that has been kept suppressed for years?

The implications of this poorly misunderstood mind/body/spiritual connection to health and happiness has many experts on both sides of the prescription drug and natural treatment entrenchment camps rather stumped.