Vitamin C Deficiency During Pregnancy May Affect Fetal Brain

by | Mar 6, 2013 | 2012, Pregnancy and Lactation, Women's Health

Written by Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS. Guinea pigs whose mothers were fed 100mg/kg/food of vitamin C had 14.2% smaller part of the brain involved in memory and learning compared to guinea pig who were fed 900 mg/kg/food of vitamin C during their pregnancy.

During development, the fetal brain grows at such a fast rate that low levels of antioxidants can make it vulnerable to cell damage by free-radicals (1). As a result, the body naturally increases vitamin C levels in the brain during development to minimize cell damage (2).

Building upon research showing vitamin C to play a key role in the regulation of nerve development and function (3), a new study (4) has again put forth the important role vitamin C may play in fetal brain health during pregnancy.

In the study 160 newborn pup guinea pigs were fed either 1 of 4 diets:

  • High/High Group = Pups whose mothers were fed 900 milligrams per kilogram of food of vitamin C during their pregnancy were fed 750 mg/kg/food vitamin C after birth.
  • High/Low Group = Pups whose mothers were fed 900 mg/kg/food of vitamin C during their pregnancy were fed 100 mg/kg/food vitamin C after birth.
  • Low/Low Group = Pups whose mothers were fed 100 mg/kg/food of vitamin C during their pregnancy were fed 100 mg/kg/food vitamin C after birth.
  • Low/High Group = Pups whose mothers were fed 100 mg/kg/food of vitamin C during their pregnancy were fed 750 mg/kg/food vitamin C after birth.

The 100 mg/kg/food regimen has been shown to result in vitamin C deficiency (5). The researchers chose to study guinea pigs because like humans, guinea pigs are unable to synthesize vitamin C due to a mutation in a specific gene, making guinea pigs “a highly valuable model for vitamin C deficiency.”

Pups were weighed and brain samples were obtained for up to 70 days after birth. Regarding body weight, by day 27 those in the Low/Low Group weighed 29% less than the Low/High Group (159.3 vs. 223.4 grams), 33% less than High/High Group (159.3 vs. 236.9 grams), and 35% less than the High/Low Group (159.3 vs. 244.9 grams) (p < 0.001).

For the researchers, “Vitamin C deficiency in guinea pigs leads to persistent impairment of postnatal hippocampal development which is not alleviated by postnatal repletion” and that “Our findings place attention on a yet unrecognized consequence of marginal Vitamin C deficiency during pregnancy.”

The importance of these findings can be seen if the data gathered using an animal model is translated into human relevancy. The group of guinea pups that consumed 900 mg of vitamin C per kg of food per day during their pregnancy consumed about 9mg of vitamin C per day since guinea pigs eat around 60-100g of food per day and weigh an average of 1 kg. After converting from guinea pig dose to human dose, 9 mg of vitamin C consumed by guinea pig translated to 1.95 mg/kg of vitamin C. (6) Therefore for a 132 lb person this would be 257.4 mg per day which is higher than recommended daily dosage of vitamin C for pregnant women which is 85 mg daily. The results suggest that a higher dosage of vitamin C than recommended is needed in order maintain sufficient size of hippocampus in the fetal brain.

For the researchers, “Vitamin C deficiency in guinea pigs leads to persistent impairment of postnatal hippocampal development which is not alleviated by postnatal repletion” and that “Our findings place attention on a yet unrecognized consequence of marginal Vitamin C deficiency during pregnancy.” The fact that these results show the greatest benefits for the High/Low group needs to be verified with further testing.

Source: Tveden-Nyborg, Pernille, et al. “Maternal vitamin C deficiency during pregnancy persistently impairs hippocampal neurogenesis in offspring of guinea pigs.” PLoS One 7.10 (2012): e48488.

© 2012 Tveden-Nyborg et al. Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Click here to read the full text study.

Posted March 6, 2013.

Greg Arnold is a Chiropractic Physician practicing in Hauppauge, NY.  You can contact Dr. Arnold directly by emailing him at PitchingDoc@msn.com or visiting his web site at www.PitchingDoc.com

References:

  1. Lykkesfeldt J, Trueba GP, Poulsen HE, Christen S (2007) Vitamin C deficiency in weanling guinea pigs: differential expression of oxidative stress and DNA repair in liver and brain. Br J Nutr 98: 1116–9.
  2. Kratzing CC, Kelly JD, Kratzing JE (1985) Ascorbic acid in fetal rat brain. J Neurochem 44: 1623–4.
  3. Harrison FE, Meredith ME, Dawes SM, Saskowski JL, May JM (2010) Low ascorbic acid and increased oxidative stress in gulo(2/2) mice during development. Brain Res 1349: 143–52.
  4. Haramoto M, Tatemoto H, Muto N (2008) Essential role of ascorbic acid in neural differentiation and development: High levels of ascorbic acid 2-glucoside effectively enhance nerve growth factor-induced neurite formation and elongation in PC12 cells. Journal of Health Science 54: 43–9.
  5. Tveden-Nyborg P. Maternal Vitamin C Deficiency during Pregnancy Persistently Impairs HippocampalNeurogenesis in Offspring of Guinea Pigs. PLoS One 2012;7(10):e48488. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0048488. Epub 2012 Oct 31.
  6. Lykkesfeldt J, Moos T (2005) Age-dependent change in Vitamin C status: a phenomenon of maturation rather than of ageing. Mech Ageing Dev 126: 892–8.
  7. Dringenberg HC, Richardson DP, Brien JF, Reynolds JN (2001) Spatial learning in the guinea pig: cued versus non-cued learning, sex differences, and comparison with rats. Behavioural Brain Research 124: 97–101.
  8. Vorhees CV, Williams MT (2006) Morris water maze: procedures for assessing spatial and related forms of learning and memory. Nat Protoc 1: 848–58.