Eat apples, tomatoes to keep your lungs healthy

Don't want to miss the best from Business Standard?

There's no doubt that smoking can cause serious health related problems and also up the risk of cancer, but now, according to a recent study, smokers might be able to undo some of the damage to their lungs.

A new study revealed that there are certain foods which might actually slow declining lung function both in smokers and nonsmokers.

According to this recent research, eating three apples a day slows down the natural aging of the lungs and repairs damage caused by smoking.

The researchers also found the same life-extending benefits are achieved by consuming two tomatoes each day.

Talking about the study, co-author Vanessa Garcia-Larsen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore said, "This study shows that diet might help repair lung damage in people who have stopped smoking. The findings support the need for dietary recommendations, especially for people at risk of developing respiratory diseases such as COPD."

In the study, scientists 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 study showed the diet can slow natural aging. Among former smokers, the diet-lung-function connection was even more striking.

Garcia-Larsen concluded by saying, "Lung function starts to decline at around age 30 at variable speed depending on the general and specific health of individuals. Our study suggests that eating more fruits on a regular basis can help attenuate the decline as people age, and might even help repair damage caused by smoking. Diet could become one way of combating rising diagnosis of COPD around the world".

The study was published in European Respiratory Journal.