Doctors always believed that emphysema, a chronic disease of the lungs, was incurable but now new research may change their minds. It seems new research on rats might prove that old belief incorrect. While many doctors knew there were people that smoked all their life with no evidence of emphysema and lived well into their nineties, they often chalked it up to a quirk of fate or genetics. Now they know that the answer might lie in their diet.

There's even more good news on the horizon. Not only can vitamin A prevent the occurrence of emphysema, it also might be able to reverse the damage caused by the disease, according to the results found from a study conducted on mice. It's still very early in the course of research but those carrots that your mother told you would help you see better, might also help you breathe better.

Emphysema is a disease of the lung's air sacs called alveoli. The blood absorbs the oxygen from the lungs through these tiny sacs. In emphysema, they lose their elasticity and the air goes back into the lungs, making it hard to breathe in more air. Consequently, the victim struggles to breathe and often needs to supplement with oxygen.

Two studies performed on mice occurred an ocean apart. Researchers in Britain and America both discovered the relationship between vitamin A and emphysema but used different techniques and study methods. In the UK, Professor Malcolm Madden worked with other colleagues from the Medical Research Council's Centre for Developmental Neurobiology at King's College in London to study the effect of vitamin A on mice with emphysema. The American study done Kansas State by Richard Baybutt, associate professor of nutrition concerned the effects of cigarette smoking on the lungs of mice and found they had a vitamin A deficiency if they developed emphysema.

In the British study, the researchers bred the mice to develop emphysema and then injected a chemical that stunted the growth of the lung cells. The mice developed problems breathing as they aged, similar to emphysema. Once the researchers gave the mice retinoic acid, oxidized vitamin A, the lungs developed more air sacs and the size of the stunted air sacs returned to normal, giving the mice the ability to breathe more easily.

In the American study, Baybutt gave rats a diet with low vitamin A and found a high incidence of emphysema. He then exposed a different group of mice to cigarette smoke and found this created a vitamin A deficit. He theorizes that the benzopyrene, found in cigarette smoke, created the deficiency. When the rats received a diet high in vitamin A, the incidence of emphysema dropped regardless of the cigarette smoke filled environment.

Vitamin A levels in the lungs are frequently lower in those with emphysema. There's also a strong relationship between cancer and low levels of vitamin A. New research is beginning using victims of the disease and supplementation with Vitamin A and it should prove interesting to find if the results are as outstanding on humans as they are on mice. If it does pan out, you may find smoke filled bars once again but instead of peanuts or popcorn served with the drinks to the cigarette smokers, tiny plates of carrots, broccoli, kale, sweet red peppers and apricots will be the fare of choice. Until that day, while it's best to quit smoking, taking other steps to prevent the lung disease by eating a sound diet high in vitamin A, might be the best method of prevention.