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Therapy with vitamin C may help heart failure patients by improving the function of their blood vessels. Vitamin C is an antioxidant, which means it helps remove cell-damaging oxygen compounds from the body.

German and French researchers found that the vitamin appeared to keep cells in the blood vessel wall from dying. They say this protection from cell death could explain previous study findings suggesting that vitamin C benefits blood vessel function in people with congestive heart failure.

Congestive heart failure occurs when the heart cannot pump efficiently enough to meet the body's needs, resulting in symptoms such as fatigue and shortness of breath. Heart failure usually results from an underlying heart condition such as coronary artery disease.

Investigators gave 34 patients either vitamin treatment or an inactive placebo. Treated patients first received an intravenous dose of vitamin C, followed by three days of oral supplements. All were on standard drug treatment for heart failure.

Before treating the patients, the researchers had found in experiments that exposing endothelial cells to vitamin C kept certain inflammatory proteins from pushing the cells to "commit suicide" -- a process called apoptosis.

Similarly, when they examined blood samples from the patients, they found that those who received vitamin C showed far less evidence of apoptosis in endothelial cells than they had before treatment. Placebo patients showed no such change.

Heart failure patients also show poor function in the blood vessel walls, and research suggests that damaging forms of oxygen called reactive oxygen species accumulate in the blood as the condition progresses. This oxidative stress may contribute to dysfunction in the blood vessel wall -- called the endothelium -- by killing off endothelial cells, according to Circulation (October 30, 2001;104).