Body May Rust Inside If Vitamin C Over Maximum Dose.(Brief Article)

2001 OCT 18 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- If you have a bruise, a muscle sprain, an inflammatory disease or if you take iron supplements, exceeding 100 mg per day of vitamin C may be damaging to your body, according to a study by University of Florida researchers.

That's because all of those conditions produce free iron, which reacts negatively with vitamin C in much the same way that the iron on bicycles and fences reacts with water and oxygen.

"You will rust inside, so to speak," said Christiaan Leeuwenburgh, the senior author and an assistant professor in UF's department of exercise and sport sciences.

In a study published in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine, several UF researchers worked with vitamin C expert Barry Halliwell to test the effects of vitamin C and N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC, another water-soluble antioxidant) at the cellular level.

In this study, the researchers began with the hypothesis that vitamin C and NAC would speed the recovery of a muscle injury because of their anti-oxidant properties and ability to reach damaged cells quickly.

Fourteen healthy men volunteered to have one of their arms injured by a machine that ruptured their bicep muscles and created swelling. Researchers then gave half of them a placebo and the other half a drink supplemented with about 700 mg of vitamin C and 800 mg of NAC.

"Initially, the vitamin C and NAC were given to prevent the injury, because we thought they'd have protective effects," Leeuwenburgh said. "Instead, they were damaging."