Emphysema is most commonly associated with smoking, but even non-smokers lose an average of a square foot of lung membrane every year after the age of 30, according to the American Academy of Health and Fitness. The amount of individual tissue loss varies depending on many factors, including health and whether or not you smoke. Nutrition plays an important role in your health and how diseases like emphysema progress.
Significance
Emphysema is a degenerative disease that affects your lungs. Degenerative diseases progress and worsen over time. The bronchial tubes of your lungs have air sacs, also called alveoli, that become damaged from smoking, from other diseases and illnesses, and from aging. Besides smoking cessation, focusing on health and diet helps slow the progression of illnesses like emphysema. Proper nutrition helps the body fight infection. The Cleveland Clinic notes that people with emphysema and other forms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, should eat eat a healthy diet to reduce the risk of chest infections.
Vitamins and Diet
Getting your nutrients and vitamins from whole foods provides benefits that supplements do not. Whole foods provide combinations of complex micronutrients, phytochemicals and antioxidants, which slow down progression of cell and tissue damage, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Food sources that include vitamins and antioxidants include wheat germ, eggs, liver, cheese, citrus and other fruits, vegetables, beef, poultry, and fish. If you are in good health, a balanced diet can provide all the nutrients you need. But if you do not eat a healthy diet or have certain medical conditions, including pulmonary diseases like emphysema, you might consider taking vitamin supplements with your doctor's approval.
Vitamin Supplements
Antioxidant vitamins A, C and E are readily available in supplement form. If you do not eat a balanced diet or if your doctor feels supplemental vitamins will help your condition, he may recommend an over-the-counter or prescribed multivitamin. Other vitamin supplements may help emphysema as well. A 2009 study on vitamin D reports that more than 50 percent of the world's elderly population has insufficient levels of Vitamin D. In addition to helping boost immunity, the study speculates that supplementing with vitamin D may also reduce inflammation in the airways of the lungs.
Considerations
Vitamins and other supplements can interfere with medications and cause serious side effects. Always confer with your health care provider before stopping or starting any supplements or vitamins for emphysema.
