Saturday, December 20, 2008

Higher vitamin C levels associated with lower blood pressure in young women

In an article published online on December 17, 2008 in Nutrition Journal, Gladys Block of the University of California, Berkeley and her associates report that young women who have higher plasma levels of vitamin C have lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure as well as a reduced increase in blood pressure over a one year period compared with those whose levels of the vitamin are low.
The current analysis included 242 African-American and Caucasian participants in the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Growth and Health Study, a ten year longitudinal study designed to evaluate the development of obesity in adolescent girls aged 8 to 11 upon enrollment. Blood pressure was measured at the ninth and tenth annual follow-up visit, and blood samples obtained at the tenth visit were analyzed for plasma ascorbic acid (vitamin C) levels.



Following adjustment for body mass index and other factors, the research team found that women whose plasma vitamin C levels were among the top 25 percent had systolic blood pressure that averaged 4.66 mmHg lower and diastolic blood pressure that averaged 6.04 mmHg lower than women whose vitamin C was in the lowest 25 percent. When blood pressure readings from the tenth year of the study were compared with those of the ninth year, women with plasma vitamin C in the lowest 25 percent were found to have experienced an average diastolic increase of 5.97 mmHg, while those whose vitamin C levels were highest had only a 0.23 mmHg increase. A similar effect was observed for systolic blood pressure. Continue Reading

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