vitamin C tagged posts

Finger Wrap uses Sweat to provide Health Monitoring at your Fingertips

This finger wrap is powered by the wearer’s fingertip sweat—and also monitors levels of glucose, lactate, vitamin C and levodopa in that same sweat. Credit: Shichao Ding

A sweat-powered wearable has the potential to make continuous, personalized health monitoring as effortless as wearing a Band-Aid. Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed an electronic finger wrap that monitors vital chemical levels—such as glucose, vitamins, and even drugs—present in the same fingertip sweat from which it derives its energy.

The advance was published Sept. 3 in Nature Electronics by the research group of Joseph Wang, a professor in the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering at UC San Diego.

The device, which wraps snugly around the fin...

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How Vitamin C could help over 50s retain Muscle Mass

Foods containing vitamin C

New University of East Anglia (UEA) research shows that vitamin C could help over 50s retain muscle mass in later life. The study shows that older people who eat plenty of vitamin C – commonly found in citrus fruits, berries and vegetables – have the best skeletal muscle mass.

This is important because people tend to lose skeletal muscle mass as they get older — leading to sarcopenia (a condition characterised by loss of skeletal muscle mass and function), frailty and reduced quality of life.

Lead researcher Prof Ailsa Welch, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School said: “As people age, they lose skeletal muscle mass and strength.

“People over 50 lose up to one per cent of their skeletal muscle mass each year, and this loss is thought to affect more than 50 million people worldwide.”

“It’s a...

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Multivitamin, mineral supplement linked to Less-Severe, Shorter-lasting Illness Symptoms

multivitamins

Older adults who took a daily multivitamin and mineral supplement with zinc and high amounts of vitaminC in a 12-week study experienced sickness for shorter periods and with less severe symptoms than counterparts in a control group receiving a placebo.

The findings by Oregon State University researchers were published in the journal Nutrients.

The research by scientists at OSU’s Linus Pauling Institute involved 42 healthy people ages 55 to 75 and was designed to measure the supplement’s effects on certain immune system indicators. It also looked at bloodstream levels of zinc and vitamins C and D while taking the supplement, as these micronutrients are important for proper immune function.

The immune indicators, including white blood cells’ ability to kill incoming pathogens, ...

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Dose of Vitamin C helps Gold Nanowires Grow

Gold nanowires grown in the Rice University lab of chemist Eugene Zubarev promise to provide tunable plasmonic properties for optical and electronic applications. The wires can be controllably grown from nanorods, or reduced.
Credit: Zubarev Research Group/Rice University

Scientists discover a method to turn stubby gold nanorods into gold nanowires of impressive length. The metal wires could be valuable for sensing, diagnostic, imaging and therapeutic applications. A boost of vitamin C helped Rice University scientists turn small gold nanorods into fine gold nanowires.

Common, mild ascorbic acid is the not-so-secret sauce that helped the Rice lab of chemist Eugene Zubarev grow pure batches of nanowires from stumpy nanorods without the drawbacks of previous techniques.

“There’s n...

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