NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The British who traveled to Canada by ship in the 1700s knew the risks of not getting enough vitamin C: scurvy. Today's Canadians may need a reminder about the vitamin: As many as one in seven young Canadian adults may be vitamin C deficient, which could place them at increased risk for chronic health problems, study findings suggest.
Dr. Ahmed El-Sohemy, at the University of Toronto, and colleagues gathered information on diet, race/ethnicity, vitamin C supplement use, height, weight, waist size, body mass, blood pressure, and physical activity for 692 non-pregnant women and 287 men living on a university campus.
Blood tests showed just more than half -- 53 percent -- had adequate levels of circulating ascorbic acid (vitamin C), while 33 percent had suboptimal levels, and the remaining 14 percent - one in seven - had deficient levels, which were defined as less than 11 micromoles per liter of blood.
The findings were comparable to those in a 2004 study of U.S. adults.
Women generally had higher blood levels of ascorbic acid than men, though dietary vitamin C intake was similar between genders. Also, women who were taking oral contraceptives had lower vitamin C levels than those who were not.
Not surprisingly, those who did not get recommended daily allowances of vitamin C were more likely to have a deficiency.
The team reports that those deficient in blood levels of vitamin C had higher average levels of C-reactive protein, an indicator of inflammation and potentially of a number of chronic conditions.
Those who were vitamin C deficient were also more likely to have larger waist girth and body mass, and higher blood pressure on average, El-Sohemy's team reports in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Still, vitamin C deficiency "is easily preventable," El-Sohemy told Reuters Health via email: Eat vitamin C-containing fruits and vegetables such as citrus fruits and peppers, or take supplements to reach recommended intakes of 90 and 75 milligrams a day for men and women, respectively.
El-Sohemy suggests further investigations to clarify why so many young Canadians do not obtain adequate vitamin C.
SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology, August 15, 2009