New Rejuvenation Property of Vitamin C

New research shows that vitamin C¹ may be a vital tool for scientists to reprogram your older cells into new stem cells, opening the door for stem cell therapy based on your own cells.  The research also highlights a new role for vitamin C in the anti-aging process.

Recently scientist discovered that by activating certain genes old cells could be reprogrammed to become stem cells.  However, the conversion was very inefficient until they discovered that vitamin C dramatically sped up the process in a healthy way.  Other antioxidants did not have the ability of vitamin C to affect genes in this way, shining a new light on an old vitamin.

A problem in aging as well as a problem faced by these researchers is that of cellular senescence – a feature of cells that limits their lifespan and prevents unlimited cell proliferation (cancer).  It was discovered while doing this research that vitamin C turned off the cellular senescence process while simultaneously maintaining the integrity of DNA (so that cancer would not occur during cellular replication). 

The researchers were stunned by the power of vitamin C, concluding:  “It is also of interest that a vitamin with long-suspected anti-aging effects has such a potent influence on reprogramming, which can be considered a reversal of the aging process at the cellular level.”