Vitamin C is rapidly finding new applications in protection against endothelial dysfunction, high blood pressure, and the blood vessel changes that precede heart disease. Additional research is discovering that vitamin C can be helpful in preventing asthma, protecting against cancer, and supporting healthy blood sugar levels in diabetics. While often taken for granted, vitamin C is a must supplement in your program to improve cardiac health and avoid degenerative diseases.
One of the most intensely studied areas of vitamin C benefits is in the area of cardiovascular health. Vitamin C impacts several aspects of cardiac health, ranging from blood pressure to endothelial health. Perhaps it’s not surprising that as the relationship between oxidative damage, inflammation, and atherosclerosis becomes increasingly investigated by science, vitamin C is seen as a key protective element against many aspects of cardiovascular disease.
For years, scientists have warned us against the dangerous buildup of cholesterol that can lead to a heart attack or stroke. Researchers are investigating the possibilities that vitamin C may play a role in reducing our risk of plaque buildup.
In the early stages of atherosclerosis, white blood cells called monocytes migrate and stick to the walls of the endothelium. Once this process begins, our vessel walls begin to thicken and lose their elasticity, which paves the way for atherosclerosis.
Interestingly, British researchers studied the effects of vitamin C supplementation (250 mg/day) on this adhesion process in 40 healthy adults. Before the study, subjects with low pre-supplementation levels of vitamin C had 30% greater monocyte adhesion than normal, putting them at higher risk for atherosclerosis. Impressively, after six weeks of supplementation, the rate of this dangerous monocyte adhesion actually fell by 37%.
The researchers went on to demonstrate that the same small dose of vitamin C was able to normalize a molecule that white blood cells use to adhere to the endothelium. The findings indicated that through supplementation with vitamin C, scientists were able to regulate how specific genes produce vital proteins, thereby reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease at the molecular level.
Building on this important work, research in 2005 studied the impact of antioxidant supplementation on degenerative aortic stenosis, an age-associated heart valve disorder that has an inflammatory component. Scientists studied 100 patients with mild-to-moderate aortic stenosis, randomly assigning 41 of them to receive vitamins C (1,000 mg/day) and E (400 IU/day), 39 to receive vitamin C only (1,000 mg/day), and 20 to serve as untreated controls. Both supplemented groups experienced significant reductions in levels of several important adhesion molecules, potentially reducing further inflammatory damage to the heart valves.
And just as vitamin C helps preserve vascular integrity; it is also proving beneficial in combating other risk factors for endothelial dysfunction and cardiovascular disease.
Most people have learned to pay attention to the amount and kinds of fats and cholesterol in their blood (lipid profiles), their blood pressure, and their body mass index (BMI), the most meaningful measure of how weight and health are related. This group of parameters not only influences endothelial function but is instrumental in laying down atherosclerotic plaque, helping set the stage for atherosclerosis. Data from just the past few years reveal that vitamin C plays an important role in helping to prevent such a scenario.
In 2000, British researchers reported a six-month, study of vitamin C 500 mg/day versus placebo in 40 men and women, aged 60-80 years. The study was a “crossover” design in which subjects took the assigned pills for three months, stopped them for one week, and then reversed their assignments for another three months; this is a particularly strong study design because it helps to eliminate individual differences. The results were impressive, daytime systolic blood pressure dropped by an average of 2 mm Hg, with the greatest drop seen in subjects who had the highest initial pressures. Women in the study also had a modest increase in their beneficial high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels. Researchers in South Carolina conducted a 2002 study of 31 patients with a mean age of 62 years, who were randomly assigned to take 500, 1,000, or 2,000 mg of vitamin C daily for eight months. This research group actually found a drop in both systolic (4.5 mm Hg) and diastolic (2.8 mm Hg) blood pressure over the course of supplementation, although there was no change in blood lipid levels.
The development of atherosclerosis involves dysfunction of the vascular endothelium. As plaque accumulates and as vessel walls thicken, blood vessels become increasingly stiff, making them less able to participate in blood pressure control and to deliver appropriate amounts of blood flow. Endothelial dysfunction increases the tendency for arterial blockage due to a blood clot, or thrombosis. Like several other “atherogenic” changes, these effects are related to the impact of free-radical damage. Vitamin C’s antioxidant characteristics are showing great power in reducing or even reversing some of these vascular changes.
Medical researchers explored the impact of vitamin C supplements on both arterial stiffness and platelet aggregation (an important early step in clot formation). They provided vitamin C in a single 2,000 mg oral dose, or placebo, to healthy male volunteers. Just six hours after supplementation, measures of arterial stiffness decreased by 10% in the supplemented group, and platelet aggregation (as stimulated chemically) by 35%, with no changes at all seen in the placebo group. this impressive impact of vitamin C even in healthy subjects may imply an even greater effect in patients with atherosclerosis or cardiovascular risk factors, and that “vitamin C supplementation might prove an effective therapy in cardiovascular disease.”
In efforts to reduce the risk of heart disease, regular exercise plays an important part in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The increased delivery of oxygen-rich blood to tissues is a vital part of the process—but it can also produce destructive free radicals. Clearly, the solution is not to stop exercising! Rather, a series of recent studies shows how supplementation with vitamin C can mitigate free-radical damage from intense exercise.
British researchers evaluated the effects of just two weeks of modest vitamin C supplementation (200 mg twice daily) on the recovery from an unaccustomed bout of exercise. Eight healthy men were given either a placebo or vitamin C supplementation each day, and after 14 days performed a 90-minute-long running test. The supplemented group had less muscle soreness, better muscle function, and lower blood levels of the oxidative stress-induced molecule malondialdehyde.
