Till recently, vitamin C was known to work effectively against several diseases and health complications ranging from common cold to heart attacks, and even dementia. To add to this virtue, a research by Lund University suggests that vitamin C may be effective in diminishing the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer’s is triggered by death of nerve cells in the brain. The root cause for this is the accumulation of toxic protein aggregates known as amyloid plaques. These protein lumps start amassing in the brain and the first nerves to be damaged are those from the memory centre. The research showed that with vitamin C treatment, these amyloid plaques in the brain could be dissolved.
“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. Our results show a previously unknown model for how vitamin C affects the amyloid plaques,†says Katrin Mani, reader in Molecular Medicine at Lund University.
Another finding of this research Mani points out is that vitamin C in question for the treatment need not necessarily be from fresh fruits. Experiments suggest that substantial quantities of dehydroascorbic acid, like that found in juice refrigerated overnight, can also be used. The reader also adds that the idea of vitamin C treatment having a positive effect on the condition is controversial. Although, the results do put forth new probabilities for Alzheimer’s research and also highlights the chances offered by vitamin C.
The findings of this research are being presented in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.