Why Is It So Important For Heart Health?

Vitamin C: Why Is It So Important For Heart Health?

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A car is driving along the highway when… SMASH… car crash! It’s a 10-car pileup and the road is wrecked. Of course, the first priority is to cordon off the space to prevent further damage. This necessarily congests traffic.

But, because nobody was hurt, once the cars are removed and the highway is repaired with new asphalt, the blockade is removed, and traffic continues as normal; it is as if nothing had happened.

But what if there wasn’t enough new asphalt to repair the road? The blockade would have to stay up and traffic would remain congested. Furthermore, as more and more car accidents occurred overtime, the highway would become more damaged, the number and size of blockades would grow, and the highway would eventually need to be shutdown.

This, of course, is an analogy. In this analogy, the highway is your arteries, the blockade is a clot (a.k.a. an atherosclerotic plaque) and the new asphalt is collagen, the substance used to build artery walls.

The Role of Vitamin C in Collagen Formation and the Accumulation of Lp(a) Deposits I also want to introduce two more metabolic players: Vitamin C and Lp(a). Vitamin C you know as the antioxidant present in oranges, but it is also an essential player in collagen formation ( 1). Procollagen, the precursor to collagen, requires “lysine and proline hydroxylation” to become the mature collagen that is needed to repair the artery highway. Therefore, if you don’t have enough vitamin C, you can’t make collagen (new asphalt) and the artery highway remains broken. Vitamin C is needed to repair damaged artery walls by promoting the formation of collagen, the main structural component of blood vessels. Lp(a) is a lipoprotein (it is similar to LDL cholesterol particles, but with a tail) that acts like the physical barriers blocking off traffic (or orange cones) in our analogy. In arteries, Lp(a) binds to the damaged area and promotes clotting. In the short term, this is good as it prevents excess bleeding. However, in the absence of vitamin C, Lp(a) blockades accumulate, leading to eventual complete highway closure ( 2, 3). So, let’s review. The highway is your arteries, the blockade is a clot (atherosclerotic plaque), the new asphalt is collagen, which requires vitamin C to be produced, and Lp(a) is the physical barrier blocking off traffic. If you don’t have vitamin C, Lp(a) deposits — the atherosclerotic plaque — grows, and eventually you end up with serious heart disease. When it comes to heart health, we need vitamin C to prevent Lp(a) deposits from accumulating. Atherosclerotic plaques develop when damage to artery walls cannot be repaired and an internal clot develops instead to prevent excess bleeding.

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Nicholas Norwitz MD-PhD candidate at Oxford University Nicholas Norwitz is a Harvard medical student and Oxford PhD researcher who specializes in ketone metabolism. He a rising star in the scientific community, with peer-reviewed publications on topics ranging from brain health to bone health to heart health to gut health. Informed by his own medical history, he has an infectious passion for food as medicine and a drive to find innovative ways to teach the general public about the latest nutrition science. More posts by Nicholas Norwitz Expert Article This article was written by Nicholas Norwitz who is a qualified expert. At KetoDiet we work with a team of health professionals to ensure accurate and up-to-date information. You can find out more on the About us page. Evidence Based Evidence-Based articles are based on medical research, and scientific evidence. Our expert authors focus on hard evidence alone and include relevant research references from trusted sources to support their articles. We always aim to deliver relevant, trustworthy and up-to-date information based on trusted evidence and proven research.