Adults who
ate more than two tomatoes a day had a slower rate of natural lung function
decline, with ex-smokers seeming to benefit most of all, scientists said
Thursday.
Similar
benefits, they said, were observed for people who ate more than three portions
of fresh fruit a day, especially apples.
"This
study shows that diet might help repair lung damage in people who have stopped
smoking," study co-author Vanessa Garcia-Larsen of the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore said in a statement.
"It
also suggests that a diet rich in fruits can slow down the lung's natural
ageing process even if you have never smoked."
In the
study published in the European Respiratory Journal, researchers analysed data
from 680 people in Germany, England and Norway who signed up for a health
survey in 2002.
Participants
answered a questionnaire and underwent two types of lung-function tests at the
start, then again 10 years later.
One test
measures how much air a person can expel in a second, the other how much they
could inhale in six seconds.
Other
factors, such as the participants' age, height, weight, gender, income and
level of physical activity, were taken into account in analysing any
association between diet and lung health, the team said.
They found
that the rate of lung decline, which happens normally in people from about the
age of 30, was slower in those who ate more tomatoes and other fruit.
Among
former smokers, the link was "even more striking," implying their
diet was helping to repair damage done by tobacco, the team said.
The effect
was observed only with fresh fruit and vegetables, not processed.
"The
findings support the need for dietary recommendations, especially for people at
risk of developing respiratory diseases," Garcia-Larsen said.
These
included Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), caused mainly by
smoking.
"Diet
could become one way of combating rising diagnosis of COPD around the
world," she added.
One
weakness of the study was that participants' diets were assessed only at the
start of the study.
Adults who ate more than two tomatoes a day had a slower rate of natural lung function decline, with ex-smokers seeming to benefit most of all: scientists https://t.co/RgpHLrlMEc pic.twitter.com/JfStGQ18FG— AFP news agency (@AFP) December 21, 2017
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