Abstract
Elderly patients in hospitals for a long term have been reported to have low levels of vitamin C in USA and Europe, but no such data on Japanese elderly patients have been published. We therefore determined the vitamin C status of long-term hospitalized patients aged 66-96 years by assessing plasma levels and the dietary intake of this vitamin. Vitamin C status was also determined in a control group of healthy young adults aged 19-35 years. The plasma vitamin C level (M±SD, mg/100ml) was 0.20±0.07 for elderly male (n=9), 0.39±1.12 for elderly female (n=10), 0.50±0.17 for young male (n=10), and 0.61±0.13 for young female (n=10). As expected, the vitamin C level was significantly lower in the elderly patients than in the young adults. The proportion of the elderly patients classified as being vitamin C deficiency was much greater than in the young adults. The dietary intake of vitamin C (M±SD, mg/day) was 61.3±7.4 for elderly male, 54.9±13.1 for elderly female, 92.2±67.5 for young male, and 85.6±50.6 for young female. Dietary intake of vitamin C was lower in the elderly patients than in the young adults. All subjects were given a multivitamin tablet containing 250mg of vitamin C after breakfast. In all cases the vitamin C levels at 24h after ingestion were significantly higher than before ingestion. Our findings suggest that low-dose supplementation of vitamin C should be considered for hospitalized elderly individuals.
