Vitamin C may help improve mood.

Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is one of the best known and longest used antioxidants. First found to be vital in the prevention and treatment of scurvy, vitamin C has since been shown to have beneficial effects on many aspects of human health. A recent study in Nutrition (August, 2010) showed that supplementation with vitamin C helped to improve mood (as assessed by response scores) in hospitalized patients by 34%. Hospitalized patients, rarely given vitamins during their stay, are at risk for hypovitaminosis— resulting from insufficiency in one or more vitamins. Vitamin insufficiencies have been associated with mental and emotional disorders, physical impairments and disease states. In this study, patients were supplemented with 500 mg of vitamin C twice daily. These patients were found to have improvements in the levels of some immune cells and improvements in overall mood as verified by the Profile of Mood States (POMS) – a test that rates an individual’s mood profile. These results help to support the vital role vitamin C plays in human mental and physical health.



To read more on this study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20688474