A novel look at vitamin C for heart disease!
Some rodents (those in one of the two hypoxia groups and in one of the two control groups) were given vitamin C water daily for its antioxidant effects.
When the pups were born, the researchers noticed dramatic differences between the various groups. Rats born of hypoxic pregnancy with no vitamin C treatment showed increased thickening of the walls of the aorta—up to 170% above normal—and molecular markers of disease, such as an increase in the heart's heat shock proteins, a signal of cardiac oxidative stress. When the pups grew to adulthood, at about 4 months, their hearts pumped consistently harder and faster than normal, which, over the long term is a known predictor of eventual heart failure. The pups also showed obstructions in their large arteries, just as people developing cardiovascular disease do. These changes were not seen in newborn and adult offspring of hypoxic pregnancies treated with vitamin C, the team reports online today in PLoS ONE.
However, don't these rodents make their own vitamin C? Still, good news for a change