Vitamin C Deficiency in a University Teaching Hospital, 2008
Topics: ascorbic acid, vitamins, supplementation, scurvy
Authors: Runye Gan, Shaun Eintracht, L. John Hoffer
Abstract
Objectives: There is almost no information regarding the vitamin C status of patients treated in Canadian and American hospitals. We determined the prevalence and predictors of vitamin C deficiency in patients hospitalized on the acute-care wards of a Canadian teaching hospital, and tracked their plasma vitamin C concentrations while they were there. Methods: This was a population-based cross-sectional and time course survey of 149 medical patients shortly after admission to a university teaching hospital. The procedure for sample handling, storage and analysis was validated by measuring the vitamin C concentrations of a reference sample of 141 presumably well nourished people and comparing the results with published norms. Results: In keeping with published norms, 13% of people in the reference group had a subnormal vitamin C concentration (!28.4 !mol/L) and 3% were vitamin C deficient (!11.4 !mol/L). By contrast, 60% of hospitalized patients had a subnormal vitamin C concentration and 19% were deficient. A history of inadequate nutrition or failure to use a vitamin supplement prior to admission, low serum albumin, and male sex predicted plasma vitamin C deficiency, whereas use of a vitamin supplement prior to admission was associated with adequate vitamin C status in hospital. In a second measurement, obtained in 52 patients after an average of 17 days in hospital, vitamin C status had not improved. Conclusions: Vitamin C deficiency is prevalent and sustained in patients in a Canadian teaching hospital. The abnormality can be prevented by providing a diet sufficient in vitamin C or by prescribing a multiple vitamin tablet.
Related research articles
Can you heal osteoarthritis?
The function of the articular cartilage is to reduce friction between the two articular cartilage surfaces and facilitate sliding when the joint moves, and to absorb the load when the joint is exposed to pressure, compression
What is fascia and in what way does fascia change the whole way of looking at the body?
Fascia is a network of connective tissue, without beginning and end, which encloses everything in the whole body, from muscles and bones, to organs and cells. But what does that mean?
What is Fascia? Connective tissue in a system with no beginning & no end
What is Fascia? New research shows that it is more than the layer around the muscles. It is a network without beginning or end, from the skin, through the entire body, to the smallest cell.
Biotensegrity: How did the dinosaurs handle the pressure of gravity?
In the 70s when the orthopedic surgeon Dr. Stephen Levin was at a natural history museum and saw the wires holding up the neck of a dinosaur, he did not get the picture to go together. How could his neck have been held up originally?
Fascia Expert: “An explosion of new research in the last 10 years”
In 2015 veterinary Vibeke S Elbrønd published the first report on Fascia and horses. To make that happen she had to learn all there was regarding fascia, she had to become a fascia expert.
Training for strengthened Fascia
Exercise increases collagen production in tendons, ligaments and all Fascia. To stimulate collagen formation in tendons and ligaments, it doesn’t matter if the exercise is eccentric (muscle contraction during extension) or concentric (muscle contraction during shortening).
The importance of vitamin C in pregnancy, childbirth and jaundice in newborns.
Vitamin C has many different actions in the body. It is a coenzyme, which assist in various physiological processes in the body and it is a powerful antioxidant.
To understand Fascia we need to cross the bridge & see things from another perspective
Exclusive interview with Gil Headly explaining how Fascia changes the perspective on how we look at the body at the 2015 Fascia Research Congress in Washington DC.
Stretching the fascia is vital when recovering from injury
David Lesondak describes how stretching the fascia is vital for rehabilitation from injury at the 2018 Fascia Research Congress in Berlin
The discovery of a new cell at the 2018 Fascia Research Congress in Berlin
Fascia research has sparked a wildfire of new insights that are challenging conventional belief about how the body works – and the latest insights are presented at the 2018 Fascia Research Congress in Berlin.