Juicy fruit

Vegetarian Times, Oct, 2002

People with coronary heart disease might want to grab another glass of OJ with their breakfast. A study by Ling Liu and his colleagues at Hunan Medical University in China finds that vitamin C may play a significant role in countering the adverse affects of a high-fat meal, defined as one with 800 calories and 50 grams of fat.

The researchers studied 74 patients with coronary heart disease and 50 high-risk people without the disease. The two groups were split into subgroups: those who received vitamin C after eating a high-fat meal and those who did not. The vitamin C appeared to reduce the concentration of post-prandial serum triglyceride, which is raised after eating high-fat meals and is critical in the formation of abnormal fatty deposits in arterial walls. The findings were published in the May 2002 issue of the journal Clinical Cardiology.