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A new study has revealed that vitamin C has an amazing health benefit as far as obese and overweight individuals are concerned. The vitamin “presents an effective lifestyle strategy” because it mimics the effects of physical exercise by reducing their blood vessel constriction.
While the research team admitted that the study was a small one, fact remains that the results still show how vitamin C supplements can improve the lives of obese and overweight individuals who don’t have time to hit the gym regularly.
Experts from the University of Colorado picked out 35 obese and overweight subjects, and made a comparison between the effects that vitamin C had on endothelin-1 and the effects that physical exercise had on endothelin-1, a protein known for its constricting action on smaller blood vessels.
This protein is significantly more active in obese and overweight people than in those with an average weight. This makes smaller blood vessels constrict more than they normally should, and they end up becoming less responsive to the blood flow demand. This is why obese and overweight people are more vulnerable to vascular disease.
While several earlier studies had shown that physical exercise reduces the increased activity of endothelin-1, many have also found that people don’t generally have enough time to fit physical exercise into their day to day schedules.
PhD Caitlin Dow, postdoctoral research fellow with the University of Colorado and study leader, wanted to offer an alternative. She knew that vitamin C has also proven capable of improving vessel function in some of those studies, so she formed a team and started to investigate if vitamin C supplements can bring the same benefit as physical exercise.
The researchers had two (2) groups of subjects, one of obese and overweight people who were given vitamin C supplements on a daily basis, and one of obese and overweight people who were put on a daily aerobic exercise schedule.
The results showed that both interventions had the same effect on the endothelin-1 protein. For the best possible outcome, the team advises interested individuals to take a dose of 500 mg of vitamin C supplements each day. This basically has the sane effect that taking a walk does.
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