Worried about air pollution? Maybe you need broccoli sprouts!

A beverage made from broccoli sprouts may help provide a modest shield from certain air pollutants, say researchers who published a study in the journal Cancer Prevention Research.

SEE ALSO: Juicing: Benefits of drinking your fruits and veggies

According to the findings, the beverage made from broccoli sprouts helped the body excreted the cancer-causing chemical benzene from study participants’ bodies. Benzene, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is one of the most common air pollutants typically associated with gasoline fumes.

The researchers tested their broccoli sprout concoction in a growing industrialized part of China where air pollution levels are among the highest in the world. Study participants who drank the broccoli sprout drink daily excreted 61 percent more benzene and 23 percent more acrolein, a lung irritant, compared with a group who drank a placebo beverage.

The findings do not, however, advocate for the use of juice cleanses as some media outlets have suggested. At best, researchers say the beverage offers a minimal daily shield against air pollutants, and it has no effect against the pollutants already built up in a person’s system or the ill-effects of chronic pollution exposure.

The broccoli sprouts are rich in a cancer-fighting phytochemical called glucoraphanin, and researchers say the sprouts initiate a chemical reaction that causes molecules to bind to benzene in the body, making it more water-soluble.  The more water-soluble benzene becomes, the higher the volume that can be excreted in an individual’s urine. This means that broccoli sprouts don’t detoxify the body; rather, they modify the molecules of benzene and make it easier to eliminate on an exposure basis.

“We would argue that the decrease in ‘internal dose’ of benzene of about 60 percent that we measured [places us] in the same ballpark as the decreased external dose, or exposure, in Beijing…during the Beijing Olympics,” said lead researcher Dr. Thomas Kensler, as reported by LiveScience. During the Olympics, Beijing temporarily closed polluting power plants, significantly reducing the amount of air pollution in just a matter of days.

Benzene is almost unavoidable in an industrialized setting; the pollutant is an ingredient in motor fuels and used as a solvent for fats, waxes, resins, oils, inks, paints, plastics, and rubber. It is even found  in the extraction of oils from seeds and nuts.

SEE ALSO: Lemon detox diet: Weight loss or health?

“Acute (short-term) inhalation exposure of humans to benzene may cause drowsiness, dizziness, headaches, as well as eye, skin, and respiratory tract irritation, and, at high levels, unconsciousness. Chronic (long-term) inhalation exposure has caused various disorders in the blood, including reduced numbers of red blood cells and aplastic anemia, in occupational settings,” states the EPA.

“Reproductive effects have been reported for women exposed by inhalation to high levels, and adverse effects on the developing fetus have been observed in animal tests. Increased incidence of leukemia (cancer of the tissues that form white blood cells) have been observed in humans occupationally exposed to benzene.”

Benzene is officially classified as a known carcinogen for all routes of exposure.