Epidemiologic reviews
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The results presented in this review suggest that the impact of nutrition on obstructive lung disease is most evident for antioxidant vitamins, particularly vitamin C and, to a lesser extent, vitamin E. By decreasing oxidant insults to the lung, antioxidants could modulate the development of chronic lung diseases and lung function decrement. Antioxidant vitamins could also play an important role in gene-environment interactions in complex lung diseases such as childhood asthma. ⋯ This will allow researchers to evaluate the exposure-disease relation over an adequate time frame and obtain insight into the causality of the relation. Some of these studies should enroll infants and young children to determine the impact of early diet on respiratory health. Research should also focus on the equally challenging policy issues--namely, finding effective methods of convincing people to increase their daily consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, to stop smoking cigarettes, and to minimize their environmental and occupational exposure to pollutants and other agents that cause respiratory disease.