Student or educator? Sign up with your school email and get 6 months of Pro free.
CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 211

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 13 of the 13 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Global Vitamin C Status and Prevalence of Deficiency: A Cause for Concern?

Rowe, Sam, Carr, Anitra C.·2020·Nutrients
DOI 10.3390/nu12072008
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Vitamin C is an essential nutrient that must be obtained through the diet in adequate amounts to prevent hypovitaminosis C, deficiency and its consequences—including the potentially fatal deficiency disease scurvy. Global vitamin C status and prevalence of deficiency has not previously been reported, despite vitamin C’s pleiotropic roles in both non-communicable and communicable disease. This review highlights the global literature on vitamin C status and the prevalence of hypovitaminosis C and deficiency. Related dietary intake is reported if assessed in the studies. Overall, the review illustrates the shortage of high quality epidemiological studies of vitamin C status in many countries, particularly low- and middle-income countries. The available evidence indicates that vitamin C hypovitaminosis and deficiency is common in low- and middle-income countries and not uncommon in high income settings. Further epidemiological studies are required to confirm these findings, to fully assess the extent of global vitamin C insufficiency, and to understand associations with a range of disease processes. Our findings suggest a need for interventions to prevent deficiency in a range of at risk groups and regions of the world.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3390/nu12072008

Cites

13 of 13 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Show all 13 references

Research works printed but not linked: 76

  1. Carr, 1999, Toward a new recommended dietary allowance for vitamin C based on antioxidant and health effects in humans, Am. J. Clin. Nutr., 69, 1086, 10.1093/ajcn/69.6.1086 · DOI · Paper page
  2. Levine, 2011, Vitamin C: A concentration-function approach yields pharmacology and therapeutic discoveries, Adv. Nutr., 2, 78, 10.3945/an.110.000109 · DOI · Paper page
  3. Hornig, 1975, Distribution of ascorbic acid, metabolites and analogues in man and animals, Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci., 258, 103, 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1975.tb29271.x · DOI · Paper page
  4. Englard, 1986, The biochemical functions of ascorbic acid, Annu. Rev. Nutr., 6, 365, 10.1146/annurev.nu.06.070186.002053 · DOI · Paper page
  5. Carr, 2015, Ascorbate-dependent vasopressor synthesis: A rationale for vitamin C administration in severe sepsis and septic shock?, Crit. Care, 19, e418, 10.1186/s13054-015-1131-2 · DOI · Paper page
  6. Young, 2015, Regulation of the epigenome by vitamin C, Annu. Rev. Nutr., 35, 545, 10.1146/annurev-nutr-071714-034228 · DOI · Paper page
  7. Troesch, 2012, Dietary surveys indicate vitamin intakes below recommendations are common in representative Western countries, Br. J. Nutr., 108, 692, 10.1017/S0007114512001808 · DOI
  8. Carr, A.C., and Lykkesfeldt, J. (2020). Discrepancies in global vitamin C recommendations: A review of RDA criteria and underlying health perspectives. Crit. Rev. Food Sci. Nutr., 1–14.
  9. Levine, 1996, Vitamin C pharmacokinetics in healthy volunteers: Evidence for a recommended dietary allowance, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 93, 3704, 10.1073/pnas.93.8.3704 · DOI · Paper page
  10. Johnston, 1999, People with marginal vitamin C status are at high risk of developing vitamin C deficiency, J. Am. Diet. Assoc., 99, 854, 10.1016/S0002-8223(99)00203-5 · DOI
  11. Khan, 2006, Deficiency of Vitamin C in South Asia, Pak. J. Med. Sci., 22, 347
  12. Dickinson, 2009, Micronutrient deficiencies in maternity and child health: A review of environmental and social context and implications for Malawi, Environ. Geochem. Health, 31, 253, 10.1007/s10653-008-9207-4 · DOI
  13. Canoy, 2005, Plasma ascorbic acid concentrations and fat distribution in 19,068 British men and women in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition Norfolk cohort study, Am. J. Clin. Nutr., 82, 1203, 10.1093/ajcn/82.6.1203 · DOI
  14. Bates, 1999, Micronutrients: Highlights and research challenges from the 1994-5 National Diet and Nutrition Survey of people aged 65 years and over, Br. J. Nutr., 82, 7, 10.1017/S0007114599001063 · DOI
  15. Wrieden, 2000, Plasma vitamin C and food choice in the third Glasgow MONICA population survey, J. Epidemiol. Community Health, 54, 355, 10.1136/jech.54.5.355 · DOI
  16. Faure, 2006, Factors influencing blood concentration of retinol, alpha-tocopherol, vitamin C, and beta-carotene in the French participants of the SU.VI.MAX trial, Eur. J. Clin. Nutr., 60, 706, 10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602372 · DOI
  17. Galan, 2005, Serum concentrations of beta-carotene, vitamins C and E, zinc and selenium are influenced by sex, age, diet, smoking status, alcohol consumption and corpulence in a general French adult population, Eur. J. Clin. Nutr., 59, 1181, 10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602230 · DOI · Paper page
  18. Delcourt, 2001, Associations of age, smoking habits and diabetes with plasma vitamin C of elderly of the POLA study, Int. J. Vitam. Nutr. Res., 71, 53, 10.1024/0300-9831.71.1.53 · DOI
  19. Drewnowski, 1997, Serum beta-carotene and vitamin C as biomarkers of vegetable and fruit intakes in a community-based sample of French adults, Am. J. Clin. Nutr., 65, 1796, 10.1093/ajcn/65.6.1796 · DOI
  20. Marangon, 1998, Diet, antioxidant status, and smoking habits in French men, Am. J. Clin. Nutr., 67, 231, 10.1093/ajcn/67.2.231 · DOI · Paper page
  21. Paalanen, 2014, Vegetable and fruit consumption, education and plasma vitamin C concentration in Russian and Finnish Karelia, 1992–2002, Public Health Nutr., 17, 2278, 10.1017/S1368980013002243 · DOI
  22. Matilainen, 1996, Plasma ascorbic acid concentrations in the Republic of Karelia, Russia and in North Karelia, Finland, Eur. J. Clin. Nutr., 50, 115
  23. Nyyssonen, 1997, Vitamin C deficiency and risk of myocardial infarction: Prospective population study of men from eastern Finland, BMJ, 314, 634, 10.1136/bmj.314.7081.634 · DOI · Paper page
  24. Sen, 2014, Association between higher plasma lutein, zeaxanthin, and vitamin C concentrations and longer telomere length: Results of the Austrian Stroke Prevention Study, J. Am. Geriatr. Soc., 62, 222, 10.1111/jgs.12644 · DOI
  25. Olmedilla, 2001, Serum concentrations of carotenoids and vitamins A, E, and C in control subjects from five European countries, Br. J. Nutr., 85, 227, 10.1079/BJN2000248 · DOI
  26. Jungert, 2015, The lower vitamin C plasma concentrations in elderly men compared with elderly women can partly be attributed to a volumetric dilution effect due to differences in fat-free mass, Br. J. Nutr., 113, 859, 10.1017/S0007114515000240 · DOI
  27. Langlois, 2016, Vitamin C status of Canadian adults: Findings from the 2012/2013 Canadian Health Measures Survey, Health Rep., 27, 3
  28. Cahill, 2009, Vitamin C deficiency in a population of young Canadian adults, Am. J. Epidemiol., 170, 464, 10.1093/aje/kwp156 · DOI
  29. Sakai, 1998, An inverse relationship between serum vitamin C and blood pressure in a Japanese community, J. Nutr. Sci. Vitaminol., 44, 853, 10.3177/jnsv.44.853 · DOI
  30. Saito, K., Yokoyama, T., Yoshida, H., Kim, H., Shimada, H., Yoshida, Y., Iwasa, H., Shimizu, Y., Yoshitaka, K., and Handa, S. (2011). A significant relationship between plasma vitamin C concentration and physical performance among Japanese elderly women. J. Gerontol. A Biol. Sci. Med. Sci. · DOI
  31. Hughes, 1998, Plasma vitamins A, C and E in the general population of Singapore, 1993 to 1995, Ann. Acad. Med. Singap., 27, 149
  32. Hughes, 1998, Vitamins, selenium, iron, and coronary heart disease risk in Indians, Malays, and Chinese in Singapore, J. Epidemiol. Community Health, 52, 181, 10.1136/jech.52.3.181 · DOI
  33. Pearson, J.F., Pullar, J.M., Wilson, R., Spittlehouse, J.K., Vissers, M.C.M., Skidmore, P.M.L., Willis, J., Cameron, V.A., and Carr, A.C. (2017). Vitamin C status correlates with markers of metabolic and cognitive health in 50-year-olds: Findings of the CHALICE cohort study. Nutrients, 9. · DOI
  34. Smith, 1987, Serum levels of vitamin C in relation to dietary and supplemental intake of vitamin C in smokers and nonsmokers, Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci., 498, 144, 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1987.tb23758.x · DOI
  35. Hampl, 2004, Vitamin C deficiency and depletion in the United States: The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988 to 1994, Am. J. Public Health, 94, 870, 10.2105/AJPH.94.5.870 · DOI
  36. Hoffer, 2010, Re: “Vitamin C deficiency in a population of young Canadian adults”, Am. J. Epidemiol., 171, 387, 10.1093/aje/kwp400 · DOI
  37. Garcia, 2012, Zinc, vitamin A, and vitamin C status are associated with leptin concentrations and obesity in Mexican women: Results from a cross-sectional study, Nutr. Metab., 9, 59, 10.1186/1743-7075-9-59 · DOI
  38. Villalpando, 2003, Vitamins A, and C and folate status in Mexican children under 12 years and women 12–49 years: A probabilistic national survey, Salud Publ. Mex., 45, S508, 10.1590/S0036-36342003001000007 · DOI
  39. Rondo, 2008, Plasma concentrations of ascorbic acid in parturients from a hospital in Southeast Brazil, Clin. Nutr., 27, 228, 10.1016/j.clnu.2007.11.006 · DOI
  40. Charlton, 2005, Micronutrient dilution associated with added sugar intake in elderly black South African women, Eur. J. Clin. Nutr., 59, 1030, 10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602208 · DOI
  41. Ugwa, 2016, Low Serum Vitamin C Status Among Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Care at General Hospital Dawakin Kudu, Northwest Nigeria, Int. J. Prev. Med., 7, 40, 10.4103/2008-7802.176166 · DOI
  42. Nwagha, 2012, Parity related changes in obesity and some antioxidant vitamins in non-pregnant women of South-Eastern Nigeria, Niger. J. Clin. Pract., 15, 380, 10.4103/1119-3077.104506 · DOI
  43. Kiondo, 2012, Plasma vitamin C assay in women of reproductive age in Kampala, Uganda, using a colorimetric method, Trop. Med. Int. Health, 17, 191, 10.1111/j.1365-3156.2011.02907.x · DOI
  44. Halestrap, 2018, Outbreak of scurvy in Tana River County, Kenya: A case report, Afr. J. Prim. Health Care Fam. Med., 10, e1, 10.4102/phcfm.v10i1.1811 · DOI
  45. Frankenfeld, 2012, Fruit and vegetable intakes in relation to plasma nutrient concentrations in women in Shanghai, China, Public Health Nutr., 15, 167, 10.1017/S1368980011001029 · DOI
  46. Lam, 2013, Prediagnostic plasma vitamin C and risk of gastric adenocarcinoma and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma in a Chinese population, Am. J. Clin. Nutr., 98, 1289, 10.3945/ajcn.113.061267 · DOI
  47. Ma, 2009, Micronutrient status in anemic and non-anemic Chinese women in the third trimester of pregnancy, Asia Pac. J. Clin. Nutr., 18, 41
  48. Viroonudomphol, 2005, Relationship between serum antioxidant vitamins A, E, and C and lipid profiles in priest subjects at the Priest Hospital, Southeast Asian J. Trop. Med. Public Health, 36, 246
  49. Ravindran, R.D., Vashist, P., Gupta, S.K., Young, I.S., Maraini, G., Camparini, M., Jayanthi, R., John, N., Fitzpatrick, K.E., and Chakravarthy, U. (2011). Prevalence and risk factors for vitamin C deficiency in north and south India: A two centre population based study in people aged 60 years and over. PLoS ONE, 6. · DOI
  50. Dherani, 2008, Blood levels of vitamin C, carotenoids and retinol are inversely associated with cataract in a North Indian population, Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci., 49, 3328, 10.1167/iovs.07-1202 · DOI
  51. Chiplonkar, 2002, Are lifestyle factors good predictors of retinol and vitamin C deficiency in apparently healthy adults?, Eur. J. Clin. Nutr., 56, 96, 10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601291 · DOI
  52. Amaliya, 2015, Java project on periodontal diseases: Periodontal bone loss in relation to environmental and systemic conditions, J. Clin. Periodontol., 42, 325, 10.1111/jcpe.12381 · DOI
  53. Cheung, 2003, An epidemic of scurvy in Afghanistan: Assessment and response, Food Nutr. Bull., 24, 247, 10.1177/156482650302400303 · DOI
  54. Camarena, 2016, The epigenetic role of vitamin C in health and disease, Cell. Mol. Life Sci., 73, 1645, 10.1007/s00018-016-2145-x · DOI
  55. Garcia, 2013, Zinc, iron and vitamins A, C and e are associated with obesity, inflammation, lipid profile and insulin resistance in Mexican school-aged children, Nutrients, 5, 5012, 10.3390/nu5125012 · DOI
  56. Chainani, 1994, Pattern of vitamin deficiencies among the malnourished preschool children in ICDS blocks of Jaipur city, Indian J. Matern. Child Health, 5, 109
  57. Sivakumar, 2006, Effect of micronutrient supplement on health and nutritional status of schoolchildren: Biochemical status, Nutrition, 22, S15, 10.1016/j.nut.2005.07.012 · DOI
  58. Bansal, 2014, Plasma vitamin C status of adolescent girls in a slum of Delhi, Indian Pediatr., 51, 932
  59. Ahmed, 2008, The coexistence of other micronutrient deficiencies in anaemic adolescent schoolgirls in rural Bangladesh, Eur. J. Clin. Nutr., 62, 365, 10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602697 · DOI
  60. Odoh, 2003, Plasma vitamin A and C status of in-school adolescents and associated factors in Enugu State, Nigeria, J. Health Popul. Nutr., 21, 18
  61. Montagnac, 2009, Nutritional value of cassava for use as a staple food and recent advances for improvement, Compr. Rev. Food Sci. Food Saf., 8, 181, 10.1111/j.1541-4337.2009.00077.x · DOI · Paper page
  62. Washko, 1992, Ascorbic acid and dehydroascorbic acid analyses in biological samples, Anal. Biochem., 204, 1, 10.1016/0003-2697(92)90131-P · DOI · Paper page
  63. Lins, 2016, Energy Intake in Socially Vulnerable Women Living in Brazil: Assessment of the Accuracy of Two Methods of Dietary Intake Recording Using Doubly Labeled Water, J. Acad. Nutr. Diet., 116, 1560, 10.1016/j.jand.2016.02.023 · DOI
  64. Carr, 2013, A randomised cross-over pharmacokinetic bioavailability study of synthetic versus kiwifruit-derived vitamin C, Nutrients, 5, 4451, 10.3390/nu5114451 · DOI
  65. Carr, A.C., and Rowe, S. (2020). Factors affecting vitamin C status and prevalence of deficiency: A global health perspective. Nutrients, 12. · DOI
  66. Wilson, R., Willis, J., Gearry, R., Skidmore, P., Fleming, E., Frampton, C., and Carr, A. (2017). Inadequate vitamin C status in prediabetes and type 2 diabetes mellitus: Associations with glycaemic control, obesity, and smoking. Nutrients, 9. · DOI
  67. Ford, 2003, The metabolic syndrome and antioxidant concentrations: Findings from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, Diabetes, 52, 2346, 10.2337/diabetes.52.9.2346 · DOI · Paper page
  68. Khaw, 2001, Relation between plasma ascorbic acid and mortality in men and women in EPIC-Norfolk prospective study: A prospective population study. European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition, Lancet, 357, 657, 10.1016/S0140-6736(00)04128-3 · DOI · Paper page
  69. Goyal, 2013, Serum antioxidant nutrients, vitamin A, and mortality in U.S. Adults, Cancer Epidemiol. Biomark. Prev., 22, 2202, 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-13-0381 · DOI
  70. Wang, 2018, Association of plasma vitamin C concentration to total and cause-specific mortality: A 16-year prospective study in China, J. Epidemiol. Community Health, 72, 1076, 10.1136/jech-2018-210809 · DOI
  71. Lykkesfeldt, 2010, Is vitamin C supplementation beneficial? Lessons learned from randomised controlled trials, Br. J. Nutr., 103, 1251, 10.1017/S0007114509993229 · DOI
  72. Hemilä, H., and Louhiala, P. (2013). Vitamin C for preventing and treating pneumonia. Cochrane Database Syst. Rev., 8. · DOI
  73. May, 2012, Vitamin C transport and its role in the central nervous system, Subcell. Biochem., 56, 85, 10.1007/978-94-007-2199-9_6 · DOI · Paper page
  74. Carr, A.C., and Maggini, S. (2017). Vitamin C and immune function. Nutrients, 9. · DOI · Paper page
  75. Chen, Q., and Vissers, M. (2020). Vitamin C in pneumonia and sepsis. Vitamin C: New Biochemical and Functional Insights, CRC Press. · DOI
  76. German Nutrition Society (2015). New reference values for vitamin C intake. Ann. Nutr. Metab., 67, 13–20. · DOI

Cited by

Metadata

Authors
Rowe, S., & Carr, A. C.
Affiliations
  • Department of Clinical Sciences, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool L35QA, UK
  • Nutrition in Medicine Research Group, Department of Pathology & Biomedical Science, University of Otago, Christchurch 8011, New Zealand
ORCID
Carr, Anitra C.
Venue
Nutrients
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2020-07-06
Volume
12
Issue
7
Pages
2008
ISSN
2072-6643
DOI
10.3390/nu12072008
Cited by
211
References
13
Language
en
Licence
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (vor)

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.