Vitamin B could help mitigate¹ the effects of the most dangerous type of air pollution, according to a new study published Monday. 

 

上周一发布的一项新研究表明，B族维生素可减轻危害最大的空气污染物的影响。

 

In the first study of its kind, a team of international researchers looked at the damage caused by one of the pollutants² 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. 

 

According to the WHO, 92% of the world's population lives in places where the PM2.5 level exceeds the recommended threshold. 

 

For this study, published in the science journal PNAS, 10 volunteers were initially³ exposed to clean air and given a placebo⁴ to check their baseline responses. 

 

The group then took another placebo for four weeks before being exposed to heavily polluted air from downtown Toronto, where an estimated 1,000 cars pass every hour. 

 

The bad air was delivered to the volunteers through an "oxygen type" face mask. 

 

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. 

 

The researchers found that four weeks of B vitamin supplements reduced the damage of PM2.5 exposure by 28-76%.

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