Evaluation of antioxidant enzymes, ferritin and hemoglobin levels in smoking people

This study was performed over 16 healthy male subjects of age between 19-45 and 16 healthy female subjects of age between 23-43 who had been smoking one packet of cigarettes daily for about 10 years, and another group of 15 male subjects of age between 19-45 and 17 female subjects of age between 21-44 who had never used alcohol or cigarettes over their lives and neither have any health problems nor any clinical observations. The second group of subjetcs was considered as a control group. The SOD and G-Red parameters were determined using the kinetic method, Hemoglobin by the oxyhemoglobin method, and Ferritin by the enzyme immunoassay (EIA) method. The SOD parameter was measured from the erythrocyte, G-Red and Ferritin parameters were measured from the plasma, and Hemoglobin values were measured from the whole blood in the samples obtained from both the female and male groups. As a result, intra-erythrocyte SOD activity was found to be lower for the smoking male group as compared to the non-smoking male group, whereas it was found to be slightly higher in the female smoking group with a very low statistical significance (p>0,5, p>0,4). There was not any statistical change of GSH-Red activity on the smoking female group as compared to the non-smoking counterpart, whereas a very slight increase was observed with a very low statistical significance (p>0,4) on the smoking male group. A statistical change for the Hemoglobin level was not observed on the smoking male group. On the other hand, a significant decrease (p<0,025) in the Hemoglobin level was observed on the smoking female group. The antioxidant enzyme results obtained from the smoking group supports the fact that the cigarette smoke is correlated to the oxidative damage. However, the existence of this correlation is currently arguable in vivo because of the low reliability of the tests showing the oxidative stress on men. Key words: Smoking, SOD, GSH-Red, Ferritin., Hemoglobin.