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Hello. My name's Susan
Fairweather-Tait.
I'm professor of
human nutrition in
the Norwich Medical School at
the University of East Anglia
in the UK and I'm going
to be talking to you
about Vitamin C.
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Vtamin C exists in two
interchangeable forms in the body.
It's first of all the oxidized
form of Vitamin C which is
dehydroascorbic acid and
then the reduced form
of Vitamin C ascorbic acid.
The antioxidant
functions related to
Vitamin C are to do with its
ability to donate electrons.
It's able to scavenge
free radicals.
That's a very important role of
Vitamin C. It also
has many other roles.
For example, it's a cofactor
for non iron monooxygenases.
It's involved in
dopamine synthesis from
noradrenaline and involved
in hormone synthesis.
It's also involved
in iron absorption.
Although it's not a
essential, but it does reduce
ferric iron in the
gut to ferrocene,
which is the form
that iron must be
in to be absorbed into
the small intestine.
Other roles it has
is a cofactor of
iron and Alpha keto acid
dependent oxygenases.
Therefore it's involved
in collagen synthesis and
assembly and
carnitine synthesis.
Involves in regulation
of gene expression
and epigenetic erasers.
The demethylation of DNA
and RNA nucleobases.
The demethylation of histones,
the hydroxylation
of ribosomes and
the hydroxylation of hypoxia
inducible factor one
transcription factor.
Finally it's involved in
a amino acid metabolism.
In the demethylation
of arginine and
lysine and in
tyrozine breakdown.
There's wide range of functions.
