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Vitamin C and the Impact On Your Heart

What's your opinion of the recent study that says vitamin C (taken in pill form) can harden or clog arteries? Do you have any suggestions on how to get vitamin C while avoiding the negative consequences that showed up in the study?
The results you mention were presented at an American Heart Association meeting in March. Researchers from the University of Southern California at Los Angeles examined artery ultrasounds of 573 middle-aged men and women. Those who took 500 milligrams of vitamin C daily, for at least a year, had blood vessels that thickened two-and-a-half times faster than those who didn't take supplements. The rate of thickening was even higher among smokers.

Frankly, I don't find these results credible. When they announced their findings, even the scientists who conducted the study said that more research is needed to confirm -- or refute -- this data. Bear in mind that the study in question was unpublished, and the results were inconsistent with everything we know about vitamin C.

I would rather focus on some of the good news about vitamin C:

The March 2000 issue of the "Journal of the American Academy of Neurology" reported that supplementing diets with vitamins C and E may boost mental ability in later life -- and could protect against some forms of dementia, including the vascular dementia that can occur as a result of a stroke. The study involved 3,385 Japanese-American men aged 71 to 93. Those who took vitamin E and C supplements regularly (at least once a week) were 88 percent less likely to have vascular dementia four years later -- and 69 percent less likely to have other forms of dementia. However, the study found no overall protection against Alzheimer's disease.

Another study involving more than 13,000 men and women, found that women who took vitamin C supplements were less likely to develop gallbladder disease. Results were published in the April 2000 issue of the "Archives of Internal Medicine."

And in the March 2000 issue of the "Journal of Family Practice," researchers reported that vitamin C may help prevent a type of nerve pain (reflex sympathetic dystrophy) that can develop after an injury. You may have noticed that the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences, the outfit that sets the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs), recently raised the RDA for vitamin C from 60 mg to 75 mg daily for women, and 90 mg daily for men. I still think this is too low and stand by my recommendation for healthy adults of 200 to 500 mg daily, divided into two doses. In the past, I recommended much higher doses (2,000 to 6,000 mg divided into three doses daily) but changed my thinking after reviewing research which showed lower doses are probably effective in helping to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, cataracts, and other chronic conditions. Occasionally I recommend slightly higher doses for individuals with specific health conditions such as macular degeneration, high blood pressure and exposure to second-hand smoke.