Hans Unim, Edward Byamukama
Gastroenterology Unit, Department of Clinical Sciences, University La Sapienza, Rome, Italy.
Pan Afr Med J. 2010 May 30;5:15. doi: 10.4314/pamj.v5i1.56178.
Vitamin C or ascorbic acid is a hydro-soluble lactone (synthesized from glucose) essential to human body and available from diet. Despite its broad availability in fruits and vegetables, in many developing countries the incidence of clinical symptoms due to the vitamin deficiency is still very high. Also, pregnant women in the developing countries are frequently hospitalized for several preventable reasons such as anemia in pregnancy, mostly iron-deficient anemia (IDA) and the upper/lower respiratory tract infections (RTI). The aim of the study was to investigate, in a Ugandan rural pregnant women cohort, the preventive effects of vitamin C supplementation on hospital admission.
384 pregnant women met the inclusion criteria and were randomly assigned to receive either 400 mg of vitamin C daily (187) or not (197) in addition to their standard antenatal vitamins until delivery. The primary outcome measure of this study was to assess the prevention of hospitalization during pregnancy in the group of women supplemented with vitamin C compared to the controls. Fisher's exact test was employed in this assessment.
42.2% women in the vitamin C group and 27.9% in the control group were not hospitalized during pregnancy; this difference was found statistically significant.
The results of this study suggest including vitamin C in the guidelines of multivitamin prevention for pregnant women, especially in developing countries where seasonal availability of fruits and vegetables could result in adverse clinical outcomes.
维生素C或抗坏血酸是一种对人体必不可少的水溶性内酯（由葡萄糖合成），可从饮食中获取。尽管在水果和蔬菜中广泛存在，但在许多发展中国家，因维生素缺乏导致的临床症状发生率仍然很高。此外，发展中国家的孕妇经常因多种可预防的原因住院，如孕期贫血，主要是缺铁性贫血（IDA）以及上/下呼吸道感染（RTI）。本研究的目的是在乌干达农村孕妇队列中调查补充维生素C对住院的预防作用。
384名孕妇符合纳入标准，除标准产前维生素外，她们被随机分配为每天接受400毫克维生素C（187名）或不接受（197名），直至分娩。本研究的主要结局指标是评估与对照组相比，补充维生素C的女性组在孕期住院的预防情况。此评估采用Fisher精确检验。
维生素C组42.2%的女性和对照组27.9%的女性在孕期未住院；发现这种差异具有统计学意义。
本研究结果表明，应将维生素C纳入孕妇多种维生素预防指南，尤其是在水果和蔬菜季节性供应可能导致不良临床结局的发展中国家。
