14 DAY TRIAL // According to Swedish investigators, it may be that vitamin C plays an important role in dissolving the amyloid plaques that form in the brains of people who suffer from a neurodegenerative form of dementia called Alzheimer's Disease.
Lund University experts say that the role of ascorbic acid in this condition has been investigated before, but explain that other studies missed this correlation. Amyloid plaques are a hallmark of this disease.
They develop on neurons, where they start to disrupt the correct flow of electrical impulses between various areas of the brain. This can have a wide range of effects, from the inability to remember things to the inability to focus, or exhibit superior cognitive skills.
The plaques ascorbic acid combats are basically toxic protein aggregates that develop in the brain. The fact that vitamin C has the ability to influence their development is a new discovery, the Lund team writes in the latest issue of the scientific Journal of Biological Chemistry.
What makes these structures very dangerous is the fact that they can kill off neurons one by one. Furthermore, they start to do so from areas of the brain involved in creating and recalling memories.
“When we treated brain tissue from mice suffering from Alzheimer’s disease with vitamin C, we could see that the toxic protein aggregates were dissolved,” research scientist Katrin Mani explains.
“Our results show a previously unknown model for how vitamin C affects the amyloid plaques,” adds the investigator, who holds an appointment as a reader in Molecular Medicine at the university.
“Another interesting finding is that the useful vitamin C does not need to come from fresh fruit. In our experiments, we show that the vitamin C can also be absorbed in larger quantities in the form of dehydroascorbic acid from juice that has been kept overnight in a refrigerator, for example,” she adds.
The most significant natural sources of vitamin C are fruits and vegetables such as the Kakadu plum, Rose hip, acerola, guava, broccoli, lemons, oranges and Brussels sprouts. In meats, raw calf and beef livers retain the highest amounts of the chemical.
Its primary role in the human body is as an antioxidant, but it is involved in a large number of other chemical processes. As such, it is very important to consume appropriate amounts of the stuff.
“The notion that vitamin C can have a positive effect on Alzheimer’s disease is controversial, but our results open up new opportunities for research into Alzheimer’s and the possibilities offered by vitamin C,” Mani argues.