Research Finding New Properties of Vitamin C Supporting Youthful Skin Renewal

Photo courtesy of vitamincskin.com

Everyone’s always looking for healthy ways to look better. Well, here’s some research that might make you consider increasing your citrus intake, and maybe adding some beauty products containing vitamin C to your regiment.

In a collaborative study, researchers from the University of Leicester in England and the Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology in Portugal found a form of vitamin C that helps promote wound healing and also helps protect the DNA in skin cells from damage.

In the vitamin C research, Dr. Tiago Duarte said the study analyzed how the human dermal fibroblasts (large flat cells in the connective tissue that secrete collagen and elastic fibers) are effected by “sustained exposure to a vitamin C derivative, ascorbic acid 2-phosphate.”

A researcher with the IMCB, Duarte added, “We investigated which genes are activated by vitamin C in these cells, which are responsible for skin regeneration. The results demonstrate that vitamin C may improve wound healing by stimulating fibroblasts to divide and by promoting their migration into wounded areas.

“Vitamin C could also protect the skin by increasing the capacity of fibroblasts to repair potentially mutagenic DNA lesions.”

Dr. Marcus S. Cooke, a researcher with Leicester, added that, “These results will be of great relevance to the cosmetics industry. Free radicals are associated with premature skin aging, so antioxidants, such as vitamin C, can be helpful in countering these highly damaging compounds.

“This new evidence suggests that in addition to mopping up free radicals, vitamin C can help remove the DNA damage they create.”

In animal tissues, free radicals can damage cells, and there are theories that they can contribute to the accelerated progression of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and age-related diseases.

This study is the latest in a long line of publications concerning vitamin C by these researchers. Previously, the group published a study showing “evidence that DNA repair is upregulated (increased) in people consuming vitamin C supplements.” The researchers says that this new study explains some of the “mechanistic evidence” for how this works.

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