Nutrition Solutions to Counter Health Impact of Air Pollution : Scientific Evidence

Inhaling polluted air, especially air containing fine particulate matter (i.e. PM2.5) constitutes an environmental risk that has proven impact on the quality and duration of human life. The objective of this article is to highlight human clinical investigations in which vitamins and marine-derived long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (i.e. fish oil or docosahex aenoic and eicosapentaenoic acids) were administrated to minimize certain detrimental responses to PM2.5 exposure. The results from both randomized and cohort studies in the last decade demonstrated that PM2.5 exposure induced unfavorable physiological and biochemical responses (i.e. heart rate variability reduction and oxidative stress) in the human body. Supplementation of fish oil, some B vitamins, vitamin E and C abrogated these responses. A large number of the world’s population are now exposed to air pollution daily, which will largely remain for many years. These studies hold promise for nutrition to play a role in ameliorating some detrimental responses to PM2.5. Future investigations are warranted to determine whether long-term administration of these nutrients improves PM2.5-related clinical endpoints e.g. cardiovascular and respiratory outcomes. Corresponding author: Zhang, W. DSM Nutrition Products, Human Nutrition and Health, Beijing, China. E-mail: [email protected] Received Date: March 26, 2015 Accepted Date: April 04, 2015 Published Date: April 08, 2015 Citation: Zhang, W. et al. Nutrition Solutions to Counter Health Impact of Air Pollution: Scientific Evidence of Marine Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Vitamins Minimizing Some Harms of PM2.5. (2015) J Food Nutr Sci 2(2): 1-6. Int J Food Nutr Sci | Volume 2: Issue 2 www.ommegaonline.com