Protective effects of selenium, vitamin C and vitamin E against oxidative stress of cigarette smoke in rats

✍ Scribed by Nihat Dilsiz; Ali Olcucu; Mehmet Cay; Mustafa Naziroglu; Dursun Çobanoǧlu

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 168 KB
• Volume: 17
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0263-6484
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0844(199903)17:1<1::aid-cbf800>3.0.co;2-5

✦ Synopsis

Cataractous lenses have been found to have an altered distribution of the intracellular ionic environment; the concentrations of potassium and magnesium being decreased and the concentrations of sodium and calcium increased. These changes arise as a result of changes to lens membrane characteristics causing an increase in lens membrane permeability.

In this study ¯ame atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) was used for calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc determination, and ¯ame atomic emission spectroscopy (AES) was used for sodium and potassium contents in normal and cigarette smoke-exposed rat lenses. The methods are sensitive enough to detect quantitatively all six cations in a single rat lenses. In this work, six elements, including Ca 2 , K , Na , Zn 2 , Fe 2 and Mg 2 in experimental rat eye lenses and normal transparent lenses were determined. It was found that the concentrations of Ca 2 , Na , Zn 2 , and Fe 2 were increased dramatically while K and Mg 2 decreased in smoke-exposed rat lenses when compared to the control rat lenses. There were no signi®cant changes between smoked' rats supplied with vitamin C and control groups. A positive correlation was found also in the other two groups of cigarette smoked' animals supplemented with selenium plus vitamin E and selenium when compared with `cigarette smoked' without any supplements. These data provide support for the hypothesis that cigarette smoking increases the risk of cataract formation. We investigated whether vitamin C is the most important antioxidant in the body. The roles of diet with optimum amounts of antioxidant vitamins C and vitamin E and the antioxidant mineral selenium are discussed.