The goodness of vitamin C

2001/06/15 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Osasuna

The health benefits of vitamin C have long been known, because it protects the DNA from certain harmful effects. However, according to an article published in the journal Science, vitamin C produces negative side effects in DNA.

Antioxidant vitamins C and E, which act against free radicals associated with certain cancers, are considered beneficial for cancer prevention. However, in clinical trials with humans, it has not been shown that antioxidant additives prevent cancer. Now, Ian Blair, of the University of Pennsylvania, explains why.

By destroying free radicals, vitamin C also becomes radical. The presence of metallic ions in the surroundings allows to transform some lipids into genotoxins that hinder the coding of DNA. However, the presence of metallic ions in human blood is not very common.

However, DNA damaged by genotoxins has also been observed in healthy people. Therefore, Blair and his team investigate whether vitamin C is capable of causing injury alone. They have worked with metal ion free solutions and have found that vitamin 200 mg C produces genotoxins.

However, they do not know to what extent vitamin C can only cause damage, since although the vitamin C concentration used is not much higher than that which occurs in human blood, very few people have a high level of these lipids. But research serves to unravel certain aspects of cancer, such as why genotoxins occur with such rare metal ions. It has been found that the response is related to vitamin C.