Did you know that vitamin C can prevent the development of leukemia?

From time to time, some miraculous substance appears to be said to be the weapon against all existing diseases. The IFLScience website cites saffron and cannabis as the current darlings of those who prefer to live a more natural life and also points out that, in the past, this position belonged to vitamin C.

But scientists have recently noticed that this vitamin has an important role to play in preventing leukemia - and of course all the other benefits it provides. Vitamin C is one of the regulators of blood cell production and is therefore essential in preventing blood cancer.

"We have known for some time that people with lower levels of ascorbic acid (vitamin C / ascorbate) have a higher risk of cancer, but we didn't understand why, " said Dr. Sean Morrison of the University of Texas. It turns out that most animals produce their own ascorbate, unlike humans, making studies harder to conduct.

Another detail is that ascorbic acid acts directly on the stem cells produced by the marrow, which in other organs are at much lower levels, making it difficult to collect sufficiently for metabolic analysis of the relationship between them and vitamin C. For this, it was necessary slightly change the conduct of research in this area.

Using mice that did not produce ascorbic acid, the researchers analyzed how their bodies behaved with different amounts of vitamin C intake. The lower this intake, the more the marrow stem cells produced blood cells, greatly increasing the appearance of leukemias.

Through these results, the researchers hope to be able to precisely determine the optimal amount of daily intake of this vitamin and also how to administer it in patients who have already developed leukemia in search of possible allies in the treatment of this disease.