I hope this news is not taken as an excuse by governments around the world to increase pollution and start distributing B vitamins to the population as treatment. But given the already high pollution in most major cities around the world, taking a B complex vitamin could be a cheap and safe way to negate some of the negative effects of living in a megapolis.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/03/07/1618545114.abstract
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/14/health/vitamin-b-pollution/index.html
"...Vitamin B could help mitigate the effects of the most dangerous type of air pollution, according to a new study published Monday. In the first study of its kind, a team of international researchers looked at the damage caused by one of the pollutants that has the most severe impact on health: PM2.5. The team found that something as simple as a daily vitamin B supplement could potentially reduce the impact of the tiny particles on the human body, although they stressed that research was in its early stages and the sample size was small."
"...Particulate matter, or PM, is a type of air pollutant consisting of small particles of different sizes -- from tiny molecular clusters to dust or pollen that we can see. PM2.5 has a diameter of fewer than 2.5 micrometers, about 30 times smaller than a human hair. "These particles are so small they can go into our respiratory system," Chak K. Chan, professor of Atmospheric Environment at the School of Energy and Environment, at Hong Kong's City University told CNN. "They can go deep into our lungs." Once the particles are inhaled they can result in lung and systemic inflammation and stress, experts say. And scientists suspect exposure to PM2.5 can cause "epigenetic" changes to our cells -- disturbances or mutations that can damage our health."
"...The experiment was then repeated, with each volunteer taking a B vitamin supplement daily -- made up of 2.5 mg of folic acid, 50 mg of vitamin B6, and 1 mg of vitamin B12. B6 can be found in liver, chicken and nuts, amongst other things, and B12 in fish, meat, eggs, milk and some cereals. The researchers found that four weeks of B vitamin supplements reduced the damage of PM2.5 exposure by 28-76%."
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/03/07/1618545114.abstract
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/14/health/vitamin-b-pollution/index.html
"...Vitamin B could help mitigate the effects of the most dangerous type of air pollution, according to a new study published Monday. In the first study of its kind, a team of international researchers looked at the damage caused by one of the pollutants that has the most severe impact on health: PM2.5. The team found that something as simple as a daily vitamin B supplement could potentially reduce the impact of the tiny particles on the human body, although they stressed that research was in its early stages and the sample size was small."
"...Particulate matter, or PM, is a type of air pollutant consisting of small particles of different sizes -- from tiny molecular clusters to dust or pollen that we can see. PM2.5 has a diameter of fewer than 2.5 micrometers, about 30 times smaller than a human hair. "These particles are so small they can go into our respiratory system," Chak K. Chan, professor of Atmospheric Environment at the School of Energy and Environment, at Hong Kong's City University told CNN. "They can go deep into our lungs." Once the particles are inhaled they can result in lung and systemic inflammation and stress, experts say. And scientists suspect exposure to PM2.5 can cause "epigenetic" changes to our cells -- disturbances or mutations that can damage our health."
"...The experiment was then repeated, with each volunteer taking a B vitamin supplement daily -- made up of 2.5 mg of folic acid, 50 mg of vitamin B6, and 1 mg of vitamin B12. B6 can be found in liver, chicken and nuts, amongst other things, and B12 in fish, meat, eggs, milk and some cereals. The researchers found that four weeks of B vitamin supplements reduced the damage of PM2.5 exposure by 28-76%."
