Consuming vitamin C at recommended amounts may help prevent some of the muscle loss that occurs with age, the results of a new study suggest.
Investigators from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, followed 13,000 people aged 42 to 82 years who participated in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition Norfolk Study. Vitamin C intake was self-recorded over seven days and also was measured using blood samples.
Participants with the highest amounts of vitamin C in their diet or blood also had the greatest estimated skeletal muscle mass when compared with those with the lowest amounts of vitamin C, reported Richard Hayhoe, Ph.D., MPH. In addition, nearly 60% of men and 50% of women studied were not consuming the daily amount of vitamin C recommended in Europe: 110 mg for men and 95 mg for women. (In the United States, the recommendation is slightly lower, at 90 mg for men and 75 mg for women.)
“We are very excited by our findings, as they suggest that dietary vitamin C … may be useful for preventing age-related muscle loss,” said Hayhoe. “We’re not talking about people needing mega-doses. Eating a citrus fruit, such as an orange, each day and having a vegetable side to a meal will be sufficient for most people.”
People aged more than 50 years lose up to 1% of their skeletal muscle mass each year, the researchers said.
The study was published in The Journal of Nutrition.
