Good morning friends. This news focused my eyes as we all know our heart is the important part of our body. I know this will help many who have a heart problem.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, say that they have found further evidence suggesting that vitamin C supplements can lower concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP), a central biomarker of inflammation which is a powerful predictor of heart disease and diabetes.
The researchers have also found in the same study that daily doses of vitamin E, another antioxidant, are not very beneficial. The findings emerge just days after an eight-year clinical trial, led by researchers at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, failed to confirm that vitamins C or E supplements could prevent heart attacks or strokes.
Gladys Block, UC Berkeley professor emeritus of epidemiology and public health nutrition, said that their study did not close the books on the benefits of vitamin C for cardiovascular health.
She said that the Brigham and Women’s Hospital study did not screen study participants for elevations in CRP, defined by the American Heart Association as 1 milligram per litre or greater, which is an important distinction in determining who might benefit from taking vitamin C.
She insisted that her study showed that for healthy, non-smoking adults with an elevated level of CRP a daily dose of vitamin C lowered levels of the inflammation biomarker after two months compared with those who took a placebo.
However, the study published in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine did not find any benefit from vitamin C supplementation for participants that did not start out with elevated CRP levels.
“This is an important distinction; treatment with vitamin C is ineffective in persons whose levels of CRP are less than 1 milligram per litre, but very effective for those with higher levels. Grouping people with elevated CRP levels with those who have lower levels can mask the effects of vitamin C. Common sense suggests, and our study confirms, that biomarkers are only likely to be reduced if they are not already low,” said Block.
Posted by dhirendra08 
