Keeping the juices flowing with age: vitamin C and exercise hyperaemia

Abstract

In a recent issue of The Journal of Physiology Kirby and colleagues (Kirby et al. 2009) demonstrate that acute brachial artery administration of vitamin C enhances the steady-state blood flow responses to rhythmic hand gripping in older humans. They showed that vitamin C administration both before and during hand gripping caused a marked (30%) increase in forearm vascular conductance and blood flow during 10% rhythmic forearm exercise. By contrast, vitamin C does not restore or improve vasodilator response to a single contraction which is blunted by ageing both with and without vitamin C.