Biomedical Research

Vitamin C (Ascorbic acid) is a water soluble vitamin which is an antioxidant and has a wide variety of biological functions for growth and development of the human body. It is very es-sential for immune enhancement in human beings. Vitamin C-deficiency and falciparum malaria are two major public health problems in developing countries. Falciparum malaria is associated with significant destruction of erythrocytes and leading to severe anaemia. The present study was delineated to estimate the serum ascorbic acid concentration in 150 acute falciparum-malaria patients (aged two to ten years). Serum ascorbate level concentrations of 20 healthy volunteers (aged two to ten years) were included as controls. The mean serum ascorbic acid concentration of healthy controls was 1.163 ± 0.059 mg/dL and that of diseased cohort was 0.685±0.0145 mg/dL. The mean parasitemia was 1239.2±33.609 per μL. The dis-eased cohort demonstrated significant reduction in concentrations of ascorbic acid in com-parison to healthy controls (p<0.001) and there was inverse relationship (coefficient of cor-relation r = -0.98) between parasitemia and serum ascorbic acid concentration.

Author(s): Adil Raza, Haris M. Khan, Fatima Shujatullah, Trivendra Tripathi, Mohd. Ashraf Malik, Mohd. Shahid, Abbas A. Mahdi
Abstract | Full-Text | PDF

Share this