Does Vitamin C Act As an Antioxidant or Prooxidant? (Nutrition and Diet Research Progress)

Vitamin C is known to be an effective antioxidant in biological fluids and cells, and generally believed to be a beneficial component from vegetables and fruits. Vitamin C is an important dietary antioxidant which significantly decreases the adverse effects of reactive oxygen species (ROS) formed in the cell. Paradoxically, vitamin C has also been shown to oxidise the cellular components under certain in vitro experimental conditions and induce cell death in a number of different cell lines. However, the mechanism of the oxidising feature of vitamin C is not well understood. It has been reported that vitamin C loses its effectiveness as antioxidant at high concentrations or at partial oxygen pressures.