Twenty female their husband are heavy smokers were involved in this study in addition to another twenty women have no household exposure to cigarette smoking. All women have no serious health problem and they never smoke. The object of our study was to assess the presence of any relation between household exposure to passive smoking and serum concentration of retinol, tocopherols and carotenoids. Persons who smoke cigarettes are known to differ from persons who never smoked with respect to several life style behaviors, including eating less healthful diet and drinking more alcohol. The same could be true, to a lesser degree for comparison of non-smokers exposed to passive smoking with non-smoker who is not exposed to passive smoking. Serum samples were taken from the two groups and analyzed to reveal the concentration of retinol, tocopherols and carotenoids. Comparison between the two groups shows that those non-smokers who were exposed to passive smoking at home had serum concentration of carotenoids lower than in females not exposed to passive smoking at home (P<0.05). For serum retinol concentration. it was significantly higher in female with no household exposure than in female with household exposure (P<0.05), the same for serum tocopherols concentration. The results suggest that passive smoke exposure lowered circulating micronutrient concentration by directly depleting antioxidant micronutrient.
