Quantitative studies of biological responses in hamsters exposed to tobacco smoke and effects of vitamin C supplement on smoke inhalation toxicity.

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Abstract
Male Syrian golden hamsters were exposed to smoke from 10, 20 or 30 cigarettes twice/day, 5 days/wk, in a Hamburg II type smoking machine for quantitative evaluation of biological responses. An additional group received 1% dietary vitamin C supplement and was exposed to smoke from 30 cigarettes in the same manner as the other smoke-exposed groups to study the effect of vitamin C on smoke inhalation toxicity. These hamsters were killed by design after 4, 13 and 53 wk of exposure. The smoke-exposed hamsters exhibited decreased body weight gain and food efficiency depending on the dose of cigarettes and showed various tobacco-related histological changes in the respiratory tract. Histometrical evaluation revealed that smoke exposure enhanced alveolar macrophage mobilization and thickening of the laryngeal mucosa relating to the dose of cigarettes and duration of exposure. While the vitamin C-supplemented group showed slightly improved body weight gain and food efficiency, significantly lower incidences of rhinitis, focal bronchial epithelial hyperplasia and bronchiolar adenomatoid lesion and depressed alveolar macrophage mobilization as compared with those in the smoke-exposed group at the same dose of cigarettes. Measurement of alveolar macrophage count and thickness of the laryngeal mucosa may have been most useful in rating the biological damage elicited by cigarette smoke in hamsters. Vitamin C may have had a protective effect in some part on smoke inhalation toxicity.