Researchers: Vitamin C Helps Stop Diabetes Damage

OKLAHOMA CITY – University of Oklahoma researchers say they've found a way to use vitamin C in combination with insulin to help stop the damage caused by Type 1 diabetes.

Michael Ihnat, a pharmacologist in the OU College of Medicine's Department of Cell Biology, was the principal investigator on the study. The study's findings will appear this week in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Ihnat says that the combination of insulin to control blood sugar and vitamin C stopped blood vessel damage cause by Type 1 diabetes in patients with poor glucose control.

He says it was the first time the effectiveness of the therapy had been tested in humans. He says a study is under way to see if a similar therapy might work in Type 2 diabetes patients.