The only functional role of the vitamin to be categorically established is its ability to prevent and or cure scurvy. In this role, however, it must affect in some degree every bodily function because the vitamin is needed literally to hold the body’s cell together.
Additionally, the basement membrane lining the capillaries, the intracellular cement holding together the endothelial cells and the scar tissue responsible for wound healing all require the presence of vitamin C for their formation and maintenance.
Vitamin C is antioxidant and a cofactor in many hydroxylating reactions. Leukocytes have high concentrations of ascorbate that is used rapidly during infection and phagocytosis, which points to vitamin C’s role in immunity.
Vitamin C is required in several reactions involved in body processes, including collagen synthesis, carnitine synthesis, tyrosine synthesis and catabolism, and neurotransmitter synthesis.
Vitamin C: Function and Action
