The wild concept that all of us get vitamins from the air that we breathe

Around 10 years in the past, British tabloid newspaper The Sun ran a memorable article about a pair who claimed to be “breatharians”, ready to live on on slightly water or even much less meals. Instead, they stated, they derived sustenance from air, daylight and the power of the universe. The tale was once picked up via media retailers internationally and propelled the couple and their bizarre way of life to repute – and no small quantity of ridicule.

Needless to mention, people – even self-described breatharians – can’t are living totally on air and daylight, as some practitioners tragically found out when they died making an attempt. But weirdly, the idea that seems to be extra considerable than it first turns out. According to a duo of Australian scientists, we will be able to and do derive vitamins from the air – nowhere close to sufficient to survive, however in all probability sufficient to profit our well being. Is it conceivable {that a} supply of diet has been beneath our noses all alongside?

“The evidence shows very clearly that we can absorb nutrients from the air we breathe,” says Flávia Fayet-Moore, a diet scientist on the University of Newcastle in Australia. Whether or now not those “aeronutrients”, because the pair have dubbed them, make a vital contribution to our well being isn’t but transparent, she says – however they may sooner or later.

Every day, we breathe round 7000 to 8000 litres of air, a mix of nitrogen, oxygen, argon, water vapour and whiffs of alternative gases. Our lungs extract oxygen and exchange it with…