The relationship between plasma ascorbate and lipid concentrations in fasting men.

A study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between vitamin C status and plasma lipid concentrations in 97 fasting men. Plasma ascorbate was found to be negatively associated with total cholesterol and positively associated with both high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol concentration and the HDL/total cholesterol ratio (P less than 0.05 in each case). There was no association between ascorbate and triglyceride levels. In view of the relevance of HDL cholesterol to ischaemic heart disease these associations may have some clinical importance, although they were all rather weak.