Air pollution has a knack for being hard to mentally grasp until it’s so thoroughly wrecked your lungs that you have no choice but to confront its effects. A new study from researchers at the University of Technology Sydney suggests that vitamin C, of all things, might help reduce some of the cellular damage caused by fine particulate air pollution, otherwise known as PM2.5.
PM2.5 refers to microscopic particles produced by everything from rush-hour traffic to dust storms and brushfires. They’re small enough to get dragged deep into your lungs with a simple inhale and have been linked to a range of respiratory diseases, like asthma and lung cancer.
The researchers exposed male mice and lab-grown human lung tissue to pollution levels consistent with those experienced in the developed world. And then they added some vitamin C to see what would happen.
Turns Out Vitamin C Might Help Your Body Handle Dirty Air
Vitamin C helped protect lung cells from some of the damage caused by PM2.5 exposure. Cells lost fewer mitochondria, which you probably know better as the “powerhouse of the cell,” and showed less inflammation.
They were better shielded from oxidative stress, which causes tissue damage over time. It’s one of those results that makes a lot of sense in theory, and makes you wonder why we didn’t come across this revelation earlier.
Vitamin C is a well-known antioxidant, and antioxidants are basically housekeepers that you invite into your body to do the dirty work.
The study’s authors, who published their findings in Environment International, stress that this doesn’t mean vitamin C is a magic shield against pollution. After all, we would all be better off if we reduced pollutants overall; we wouldn’t have to deal with the issue in the first place.
And, of course, since the experiments were done on mice, we will have to wait and see whether the same protective efforts translate to humans breathing in real air. Researchers also cautioned against people learning about the study and then self-administering high doses of vitamin C without proper medical guidance, since overdoing beneficial supplements carries risks.
In the case of a vitamin C overdose, a person may develop nausea, diarrhea, and that antioxidant effect you’re looking for would actually be negated, thus rendering the entire pursuit obsolete.
There’s also the fact that, as I intimated above, there is no supplement out there that can adequately substitute for clean air. It’s better to focus our energies on making our cities more hospitable than trying to put a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.
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