More reasons to include vitamin B in your diet. It’ll protect your heart from pollution
If you want to protect yourself from air-pollution-induced heart problems, you may want to include more of vitamin B in your diet. In the research conducted at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, healthy non-smokers who took vitamin B supplements nearly reversed any negative effects on their cardiovascular and immune systems, weakening the effects of air pollution on heart rate by 150%, total white blood count by 139%, and lymphocyte count by 106%.
This is the first clinical trial to evaluate whether vitamin B supplements change the biologic and physiologic responses to ambient air pollution exposure. The study initiates a course of research for developing preventive pharmacological interventions using B vitamins to contain the health effects of air pollution.
“Ambient PM2.5 pollution is one of the most common air pollutants and has a negative effect on cardiac function and the immune system,” said principal investigator Jia Zhong. “For the first time, our trial provides evidence that B-vitamin supplementation might attenuate the acute effects of PM2.5 on cardiac dysfunction and inflammatory markers.”