Lots of bennies from Vit. C--here's another:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000154642417163&rtmo=VZkmxZGx&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/99/8/1/nvitc01.html

ISSUE 1528 Sunday 1 August 1999

Take vitamin C to avoid miscarriages, say doctors, By Jacqui Thornton, Health Correspondent

FOODS with anti-oxidant properties, such as tomatoes, oranges and tea, or simply doses of vitamin C, could help to prevent early miscarriage, doctors believe.

A joint project between Cambridge University and University College Hospital in London are studying oxygen levels in the blood during early pregnancy. They have found that women who miscarry commonly have high levels of oxygen in the placenta, but believe that, if women ate foods high in anti-oxidants, the foetus could withstand the oxygen's toxic effects.

They think that, if women were encouraged to take vitamin C, which is high in anti-oxidants, more pregnancies would go full term. Strawberries, asparagus, prunes, lemons, celery and olives all contain powerful anti-oxidants, which are also believed to protect against cancer.

Dr Graham Burton at Cambridge University and Dr Eric Jauniax, from University College Hospital, are studying the blood-oxygen levels of 100 women using ultra-sound scans. The £80,000 two-year-project is funded by the Tommy's campaign, based at St Thomas' Hospital in London, which raises money to further research into all aspects of pregnancy.

Dr Burton and Dr Jauniaux's theory about anti-oxidants follows groundbreaking and controversial research which shows that there is little blood flow from the mother to the baby in normal pregnancies before 10 weeks. Previously it was thought that blood, and therefore oxygen, flowed from the mother to the placenta from the moment the embryo implanted.

The new research indicates that tissues from the placenta "plug" the maternal blood vessels before 10 weeks, so blood, and therefore oxygen, are not transferred to the foetus. However it appears that, in some cases and for unknown reasons, the tissues do not plug the vessels and the foetus becomes susceptible to toxins produced by the high levels of oxygen and dies.

Researchers believe that, if anti-oxidants were present, the body would have enough enzymes to counter the toxic effect of the oxygen. After 10 weeks, it appears that the oxygen is not harmful to the pregnancy. At that stage the tissues that are "plugging" the maternal vessels dissipate.

Dr Jauniax, a consultant obstetrician, who currently appears on the BBC's Maternity programme, said that, once the current project was over, he hoped to gain further funding to study the effect of anti-oxidants. He added that many of the 300,000 women who had miscarriages every year could benefit from anti-oxidants.

"Vitamin C has no side effects. If a woman has had a miscarriage before and wants to stop it from happening again, she would benefit from taking vitamin C." Dr Burton, from the department of anatomy at Cambridge, said he believed that a balanced diet with anti-oxidants would probably protect the developing foetus. He said: "They could provide the tissues with greater protection against the levels of oxygen. It may be down to diet."

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), August 01, 1999

Answers

Remember to drink your pine needle tea, ladies.

-- Susie (susie0884@aol.com), August 04, 1999.