Another vote for vitamin C

Focuses on why schizophrenics have uniquely high levels of vitamin C in their blood and why even though they are twice as likely to smoke they have the same or even rates of lung cancer. Work of Daniel Kanofsky M.D. of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine; What Kanofsky's work suggests.

By PT Staff, published on November 01, 1994

SMOKING SCHIZOPHRENICS

Schizophrenics are twice as likely to smoke cigarettes as the general population, yet they have the same or even lower rates of lung cancer.

Fishing for an explanation, Albert Einstein College of Medicine's Daniel Kanofsky, M.D., zeroed in on vitamin C. It has a known protective effect against some cancers.

He measured vitamin C levels in the blood of smoking and nonsmoking schizophrenics and compared them with those in smoking and nonsmoking controls. Sure enough, Kanofsky found, schizophrenics have uniquely high levels of vitamin C in their blood.

The big question is why. In normal folks, smoking chips away at vitamin C, or ascorbate, a phenomenon he confirmed. Kanofsky's smoking controls had 37 percent less blood ascorbate than their nonsmoking counterparts. But in schizophrenics, there's not such a big drop in vitamin C when they smoke--a mere eight percent.

Kanofsky thinks the answer lies in a faulty blood--brain barrier. Normally, it protects the brain by screening out potentially harmful substances. But in schizophrenics it may also be keeping out goodies. There's some precedent for his belief. It's suspected that the amino acid called glutamate doesn't pass as easily from blood to brain in schizophrenics as it does in the unafflicted; the net result is lower levels in the brain's cerebrospinal fluid than in blood.

The schizophrenic's brain may look at cerebrospinal fluid and not see enough vitamin C. It then may signal the kidneys to retain it, rather than excrete it out, even though there's already plenty in the blood.

Kanofsky's work suggests that a dose of vitamin C with the morning smoke may be a healthy practice.