Objectives: To assess the effect of cigarette smoking on lipid peroxidation induced oxidative stress, antioxidants, uric acid and blood sugar in normal subjects.

Methods: The study included 61 normal subjects with regular smoking habit and 57 never-smokers normal subjects matched in respect to socio-economic status, age and BMI. Information regarding smoking habit and other personal details were collected by oral questionnaire. Total antioxidant activity (TAA), reduced glutathione (GSH), α-tocopherol (α-T), ascorbic acid (AA), uric acid (UA), plasma and urinary thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), fasting blood sugar (FBS) and urinary creatinine (Cr) were estimated by standard procedures in both the groups. Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) procedure is used to estimate TAA which measures total dietary antioxidants. Statistical analysis was done with SPSS version 10.

Results: The mean pack years smoked by smokers was 14.4 ± 15.8. The plasma TBARS level in smokers and never-smokers was 2.6 ± 0.8 and 2.5 ± 0.6 μmol/L respectively. The respective figure for urinary TBARS level was 4.6 ± 2.7 and 3.7 ± 1.4 μmol/gmCr. Smokers did not show any significant difference from never-smokers with respect to GSH, α-T, AA, plasma TBARS and FBS. However, the smokers had significantly lower levels of TAA (p<0.05) and raised level of urinary TBARS (p<0.05) and uric acid (p<0.01) as compared to never-smokers.

Conclusion: Our study suggests that smoking induces mild lipid peroxidation but the body is able to compensate for it by removing its adducts. Importantly it also indicates enhanced oxidation of purines which are essential components of both DNA and RNA. Dietary antioxidants are consumed to scavenge free radicals (FR) and other reactive species (RS) in smoke. Female smokers are more prone to oxidative insult than male smokers. In summary RS present in smoke induce mild lipid peroxidation but are not the major contributors of redox imbalance in smoke induced toxicity in the selected subjects.