April journal of medicine

[Guest guest]

This mentions how much ascorbic acid was given and the life span of the mice.

jenny

March 22, 2004

Vitamin C treats neurologic condition

The April 2004 issue of the journal Nature Medicine published an article by

French researchers who discussed the finding that vitamin C could help

alleviate the symptoms of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT), the most common

inherited

peripheral neuropathy, which affects one out of every 25,000 individuals.

Approximately half of CMT patients have the CMT-1A form which is characterized

by

abnormal peripheral nerve myelination, leading to nerve damage and muscle

atrophy.

Michel Fontés and colleagues used a mouse model of the disease to determine

the effects of ascorbic acid, which has been shown to be necessary for the

promotion of myelination in vitro and, when deficient, has been linked with

femoral neuropathies. In a series of experiments, the mice were fed the

equivalent

of approximately four grams ascorbic acid for a 70 kilogram adult male, which

approaches the maximal amount approved for ascorbic acid deficiency treatment,

or a placebo. The researchers found substantial improvements in movement in

the mice treated with vitamin C after three months. The males were treated with

the vitamin until their natural deaths. Males of this genetic strain who

received placebos or no treatment lived an average of six months compared to

male

mice who received ascorbic acid who survived an average of 19.7 months, which

approaches the lifespan of normal mice.

When the sciatic nerves of the experimental mice were examined, ascorbic acid

was found to be associated with remyelination , demonstrating nerve repair.

A further finding was that the gene that is overexpressed in CMT-1A was

inhibited by ascorbic acid to a level below that which is necessary to induce

the

disease's effects in the body. The authors propose that the effects of ascorbic

acid are due not only to its antioxidant properties, but to a direct control

of specific gene expression. They plan to initiate future trials in humans.

-D Dye