Garcia-Diaz Diego Fernando, Lopez-Legarrea Patricia, Quintero Pablo, Martinez Jose Alfredo
Department of Nutrition, University of Chile.
J Nutr Sci Vitaminol (Tokyo). 2014;60(6):367-79. doi: 10.3177/jnsv.60.367.
Obesity has emerged as one of the major health threats worldwide. Moreover, an excessive body fat accumulation, which defines this disease, could lead to several associated clinical manifestations such as cardiovascular events, type 2 diabetes, inflammation, and some types of cancer. The appearance of these co-morbidities has been often related to an unbalanced oxidative stress. Therefore, antioxidant-based treatments could be considered as interesting approaches to possibly counteract obesity fat accumulation complications. In this context, it has been observed that vitamin C intake (ascorbic acid) is negatively associated with the occurrence of several conditions such as hypertension, gallbladder disease, stroke, cancers, and atherosclerosis, and also with the onset of obesity in humans and animals. Among the possible beneficial effects of ascorbic acid on obesity-related mechanisms, it has been suggested that this vitamin may: (a) modulate adipocyte lipolysis; (b) regulate the glucocorticoid release from adrenal glands; (c) inhibit glucose metabolism and leptin secretion on isolated adipocytes; (d) lead to an improvement in hyperglycemia and decrease glycosylation in obese-diabetic models; and (e) reduce the inflammatory response. Possibly, all these features could be related with the outstanding antioxidant characteristics of this vitamin. Thus, the present article reviews the up-to-date evidence regarding in vitro and in vivo effects of vitamin C in obesity and its co-morbidities.
肥胖已成为全球主要的健康威胁之一。此外，这种疾病所定义的体内脂肪过度积累，可能会导致多种相关的临床表现，如心血管疾病、2型糖尿病、炎症以及某些类型的癌症。这些合并症的出现往往与氧化应激失衡有关。因此，基于抗氧化剂的治疗方法可能被视为对抗肥胖脂肪积累并发症的有趣途径。在这种背景下，人们观察到维生素C（抗坏血酸）的摄入与多种疾病的发生呈负相关，如高血压、胆囊疾病、中风、癌症和动脉粥样硬化，在人类和动物中也与肥胖的发生有关。在抗坏血酸对肥胖相关机制可能的有益作用中，有人提出这种维生素可能：（a）调节脂肪细胞的脂肪分解；（b）调节肾上腺糖皮质激素的释放；（c）抑制分离脂肪细胞的葡萄糖代谢和瘦素分泌；（d）在肥胖糖尿病模型中改善高血糖并减少糖基化；（e）减轻炎症反应。所有这些特性可能都与这种维生素出色的抗氧化特性有关。因此，本文综述了关于维生素C在肥胖及其合并症中的体外和体内作用的最新证据。
