Could increasing children’s vitamin C intake decrease their BLLs?
Decreased lead retention has been shown in rats fed vitamin C and exposed to lead (31-33). Clinical studies in humans actually predate these and other animal studies, as case reports of lead-poisoned workers’ response to ascorbate began to appear in the literature as early as 1939 (34). Later, clinical trials were conducted among workers and other adults. An uncontrolled experiment involving 39 workers showed that their BLLs had declined 24 weeks after they began treatment with vitamin C (35). Results of a single-blind clinical trial of vitamin C (1 g daily) among lead smelter workers with BLLs of 28 to 76 µg/dL did not show vitamin C to affect their urinary excretion of lead (36). In a double-blind randomized clinical trial, however, adult male smokers given a daily dose of vitamin C (1 g) experienced a statistically significant 80% decline in BLLs (from 36 to 20 µg/dL) after 1 week of treatment that persisted through the 4-week period of the study (37). Much less is known about the e
