Handbook of Vitamin C Research

Molecular Bases of the Cellular Handling of Vitamin C 2274.8. CancerRegarding cancer prevention, diets rich in vitamin C are efficient at reducing the risk ofdeveloping cancer of the breast, cervix, colon, rectum, oesophagus, larynx, lung, oral cavity,prostate and stomach (Block, 1991, 1992; Frei, 1994; Levine et al., 1996; Feiz & Mobarhan,2002). However, it has been described that in men there is a relationship between serum AAlevels and enhanced risk of death due to cancer. Surprisingly this relationship was the inversein women (Simon et al., 2001).5. ConclusionIn addition to insufficient dietary content of vitamin C, changes in the ability of organsinvolved in vitamin C homeostasis to efficiently take up and eliminate AA and DHA maydramatically affect the degree of defensive capacity against oxidative damage or may impairseveral cell functions that require vitamin C. Moreover, several pathological circumstancesmay affect the function and/or expression of vitamin C transporters and hence alter itsbioavailability for the whole body or just certain specific cells. Thus, although our knowledgeabout the actual role of vitamin C transporters in many diseases is scarce, intenseinvestigation is currently under way to elucidate the molecular bases of these mechanisms.Future advances may permit the development of pharmacological interventions to modulatevitamin C uptake and improve the bioavailability of this compound.AcknowledgmentsThis study was supported in part by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, FIS (GrantPI080151), the Junta de Castilla y Leon (Grants GR75-2008, SA021B06, SA033A08,SA03508, SA03608 and SAN673SA07/08), Spain; Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia, PlanNacional de Investigacion Cientifica, Desarrollo e Innovacion Tecnologica (Grant BFU2006-12577), Spain; Fundacion de Investigacion Mutua Madrileña (VI Conv); The group ismember of the Network for Cooperative Research on Membrane Transport Proteins (REIT),co-funded by the Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia, Spain and the European RegionalDevelopment Fund (ERDF) (Grant BFU2007-30688-E/BFI) and belongs to the CIBERehd(Centro de Investigacion Biomedica en Red) for Hepatology and Gastroenterology Research(Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain).The authors thank N. Skinner for revision of the English text of the manuscript.