Daily Mail, Tuesday, March 3, 2020^ Page 47
microscope
Under the
Can you run up the stairs?
I refuse to take a lift for less than six
floors on principle. When I was rowing
competitively, I would train for six
hours every day, but now it’s just an
hour’s running as I’m training for this
year’s London Marathon.
Get your five a day?
Yes. I stick to the maxim that it’s OK
to eat more of anything growing
above the ground without putting on
weight. Anything below ground is
more carbohydrate-heavy.
ever dieted?
MY WeIghT hasn’t wavered much. I’m
6 ft 4 in and when I won my first
Olympic gold I was about 14 st 9 lb. I’m
about 14 st 1 lb now, but I’m doing loads
of weight training for the marathon.
any viCes?
Beer and nachos on a summer’s day.
any family ailments?
MY d Ad has type 2 diabetes. I’ve
consumed a lot of sugar in my life, so I
think it’s a route I’ll be heading down.
My mum is as hard as bullets, though.
When I was 14 I had a stomach ache
and asked for the day off school. she
said: ‘No, you’re fine.’ I was in such pain
I got a detention for lying on my desk.
I had my appendix out that night.
Worst injury?
MY cYcLINg accident in Arizona in- A wing mirror hit the back of my
head and damaged the parts of my
brain that control high-level thinking
— organisation, planning,
motivation, empathy
and confidence.
Apparently 80 per cent
of people with a brain
injury get divorced
because it changes your
personality [he and wife
Beverley are divorcing].
pop any pills?
VITAMIN d tablets and glucosamine for
old man’s joints.
had anythinG removed?
APArT from my appendix, my teeth.
When I rowed across the Atlantic in
2 005 and lost 3 st, my teeth started
falling out. I’ve had two of them
capped and I’ve got two implants.
ever have plastiC surGery?
I’ Ve gOT tattoos and I can see their
potentially addictive nature; I think
plastic surgery can be like this, so I’m
steering clear.
Cope Well With pain?
Yes, but not MrI scans because
of claustrophobia.
ever been depressed?
AfTer the accident I was mucking
about with my children and thinking:
‘I really should be enjoying this.’ But I
felt numb. cognitive behavioural
therapy and antidepressants have
gradually improved things.
hanGover Cure?
I Purge myself on a rowing machine.
What keeps you aWake at niGht?
I WOrrY during the day, but at night
I’m out cold.
like to live for ever?
NOT after seeing those pictures of
Kirk douglas before he died.
n James CraCknell is running
the Virgin money london marathon
on april 26.
olympic
rowing gold
medallist
james
Cracknell, 47,
answers our
health quizinterview by niCk mcGrath
D
e s p e r at e t o a v o i d
coming down with a winter
cold or worse, plenty of us
w i l l b e d o s i n g u p o n
vitamin C supplements —
and doctors in China are even
looking into its effectiveness
against coronavirus.
research into new and exciting uses
such as battling sepsis and memory loss is
also under way.
We spend more than £880 million on
vitamin C supplements globally, with that
figure expected to top £1.1 billion by 2024.
Its popularity is rooted in the belief that
vitamin C can prevent colds — a theory
first set out in 1970 by Nobel prize-winning
scientist Linus pauling. He was convinced
of its benefits and personally took 3g a
day, although much of his research on the
vitamin was later discredited.
Certainly, when it comes to infections or
a virus such as flu, it is accepted that
vitamin C is part of the immune response
and quickly becomes depleted. It helps by
encouraging the production of white blood
cells that fight disease, attaching them-
selves to, and killing, invading microbes.
However, multiple studies have failed to
back up pauling’s theory of vitamin C as a
preventative supplement and, accordingBy Victoria
LamBert
No wonder China’s racing
to see if vitamin C can beat
to a 2017 report by the authori-
t a t i v e r e v i e w b o a r d t h e
C o c h r a n e C o l l a b o r a t i o n ,
the best we can hope from
taking a well above average
daily 1,000mg of vitamin C is
shortening the length of a cold
by 8 per cent — about 0.4 days.
Higher doses than this have
been found to shorten colds
further — research from the
University of Helsinki in 2017
found that daily doses of 6g to
8g could shorten symptoms of a
cold by 19 per cent. But in the
general population, vitamin C
was not found to have any
preventative effect.
In other words, while it might
help fight a cold, supplementa-
tion didn’t alter how frequently
people come down with one.
the NHs recommends healthy
adults consume 40mg of the
vitamin daily. ‘We are all geneti-
cally deficient as we do not
naturally provide the vitamin C
we need,’ says Dr thomas Levy,
a U.s. cardiologist and author of
primal panacea, a new book
about the uses of vitamin C.
eating one medium orange
will provide almost double the
daily amount at 70mg, and two
medium tomatoes will hit the
goal at 20mg each.
although vitamin C may not
be the way to avoid the winter
bugs, scientists are increasingly
looking to use it as a treatment
fo r o t h er c o n di t i o n s, fro m
coronavirus to memory loss.Covid-19
IN C HINa, a study is under way
to see if high doses of vitamin C
can help fight off coronavirus
(officially known as COVID-19).scientists at the Zhongnan
Hospital of Wuhan University
are testing its effects on 120
patients who have the virus, giv-
ing them daily infusions of 24g of
vitamin C for seven days. results
have not yet been published.
the dosage being used in
China is around 60 times as
much as the NHs daily recom-
mended amount and 24 times
the amount trialled against
colds in reviews by Cochrane.
In tests, vitamin C has worked
against every virus — if given
in sufficient concentration,
says Dr Levy.
Dr Mike skinner, a virologist at
Imperial College London, says
we won’t know vitamin C’s value
against coronavirus for some
time, and says the dose being
tested is ‘massive’. ‘they’re
doing the trial,’ says Dr skinner
‘Let’s see if it has any benefit.’memory loss
COULD a lack of vitamin C also
be a factor in brain health?
researchers from the Univer-
sity of Copenhagen found that
vitamin C could be a key factor
in the prevention of cognitive
decline caused by ageing and
disorders such as dementia.
their review, published in the
j o u r n a l N u t r i e n t s i n 2 0 1 4 ,
reported a direct effect of vita-
min C deficiency on brain func-
tion throughout our lives, from
development in the womb toregrowth following a traumatic
brain injury such as a stroke.
In another study involving 80
healthy adults, researchers in
australia found that vitamin C
supplementation could improve
performance on tasks involving
attention, working memory and
decision speed.
the report, in the journal
Frontiers In aging Neuroscience
in 2019, suggested that further
investigation could be useful in
elderly groups as they are most
likely to be deficient. Vitamin C
is thought to have a protective
effect on brain cells and tests on
mice have found that extra
vitamin C improved memory
and ability to do tasks such as
navigating mazes.sepsis
NeW research into the use of
vitamin C therapy for sepsis —
where the body’s immune system
overreacts following infection,
with potentially fatal results — is
positive. In the UK there are
about 48,000 deaths a year
connected to the condition.
Now U.s. researchers at the
Virginia Commonwealth Univer-
sity have discovered that intra-
venous vitamin C given every six
hours for four days within hours
of admission reduced the risk of
patients with sepsis dying from
46 per cent in a placebo group
to almost 30 per cent in the vita-
min C group after a month.
On average, the vitamin C
group spent three days fewer in
intensive care and a week less
in the hospital overall. ‘this
therapy could potentially trans-
form the way we care for sepsispatients,’ says Dr alpha Fowler,
a lung disease specialist who led
the research last year.
p ro f e s s o r r o n D a n i e l s , a
consultant in critical care at
University Hospitals Birming-
ham NHs Foundation trust,
says researchers have been
exploring the potential of vita-
min C in the management of
sepsis for several years now.
‘results have been variable,
with some studies suggesting
benefit and others not,’ he says.
‘the evidence is not yet enough
to revolutionise sepsis care.’metaboliC issues
DOCtOrs use the term meta-
bolic syndrome to describe con-
ditions including obesity, high
blood pressure and high blood
sugar, that raise the risk of type
2 diabetes, fatty liver disease
(the build up of fat in the liver),
and cognitive dysfunction.
Now researchers from Oregon
state University have reported
that anyone affected by meta-
bolic syndrome might need
more vitamin C.
their 2019 study, published in
the journal redox Biology,
suggests that the high saturated
fat, low-fibre diet that raises the
risk of metabolic syndrome can
disrupt the natural gut flora —
or microbiome.
When this happens, some
types of harmful bacteria can
pass into the bloodstream where
antioxidants such as vitamin C
are needed to neutralise them
— this can cause a deficiency if
the vitamin is not replenished.
professor Maret traber, who
led the research, said: ‘people
with metabolic syndrome can
consume the same amount of
vitamin C as people without the
condition but have lower levels
of vitamin C in their blood.’
the researchers believe that
further work is needed to
establish whether vitamin C
supplements could have a
positive effect on reversing
aspects of metabolic syndrome.hoW muCh
is too muCh?
tHe NHs warns that taking
extremely large amounts (more
than 10g per day) of vitamin C
c a n c a u s e s t o m a c h p a i n ,
diarrhoea and flatulence.
But ‘there is no known level of
vitamin C which is toxic’, says
Dr L e v y. ‘t h i s i s b e c a u s e
vitamin C is water soluble, so
anything the body doesn’t use
will be excreted in urine.’
However, he warns that in
cases of kidney failure, supple-
ments should only be given
with close monitoring. this is
because when the kidneys —
which make urine — are failing,
it is more difficult for the body
to excrete excess vitamins.coronavirus
It boosts brains, combats sepsis and tackles colds...
Picture: geTTY I MAges