Researcher Reveals Vital Role of Vit C and Health

Thursday March 15, 2007

Researcher Reveals the Vital Role of Vit C and Health

Ever since the relatively scurvy-free voyages of Captain Cook in the late eighteenth century, medicine has recognised the importance of fruit and vegetables for the body’s health. But no one has determined the process in the body which make the active ingredient , Vitamin C, so important.

Now for the first time a health researcher at the University of Otago, Christchurch has demonstrated how and why vitamin C is absolutely vital in maintaining the health of billions of cells in the body, and limiting diseases such as cancer.

Dr Margret Vissers from the Free Radical Research Group, with colleagues from the Angiogenesis Research Group at the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences, has shown through a series of experiments that vitamin C plays a key role in all healthy cells and has a major function in controlling cell activity throughout the body.

Dr Vissers has recently published her results in two peer-reviewed journals, ‘The Journal of Leukocyte Biology’ and ‘Free Radical Biology and Medicine’. Her papers are re-focusing medical and scientific attention on the importance of vitamin C in the diet, and as an adjunct treatment for disease.

“I’m very excited about these results. For the first time they show why vitamin C is a vital part of healthy living and not just a health supplement you take when you have a cold,” she says.

”I’ve found through laboratory experiments that vit C is absolutely fundamental in controlling many cell activities, cell death and the growth of cancer cells in tumours. Without it our cells don’t work properly.”

Dr Vissers’ work has shown key enzymes in the cell need vitamin C to be activated, and having low levels of the vitamin means the enzymes as less likely to work. These enzymes (hydroxylases) are vital because they control a transcription factor within the cell (HIF-1), which then turns on specific genes, changing the way the cells respond to stress, and controlling cell death and growth.

“So what we’re talking about here is a vitamin which is absolutely central to the command and control mechanisms within the body’s cells. Without it you’re in big trouble, and with low levels you’re not healthy,” she says.

But what does this mean for cancer? “Well, it’s certainly not a cure. However, when vitamin C is low or absent, HIF-1 transcription factor turns on, and this means cancer cells in tumours can make more blood vessels, grow well and can resist chemotherapy.”

“This also means that a lack of vitamin C increases tumour growth and prevents effective treatment. It follows that restoring vitamin C to normal levels means less tumour growth and more successful chemotherapy.”

Dr Vissers’ next step will be to test tumour tissue to see if it actually is low in vitamin C, and whether boosting levels will make a difference to standard cancer treatments.

However, she says her research is not a justification for extensive vitamin supplementation for people enjoying normal health. As ever, simple is best; plenty of regular fruit and vegetables are the key to maintaining good cell health.

ENDS

www.chmeds.ac.nz

© Scoop Media